Mr Ayoade Akinrinbosun, one of the main suspects in the Offa bank robbery trial at a Kwara State High Court sitting in Ilorin yesterday, told the court how the former Commander of the IRT squad, Abba Kyari, offered him N10 million to implicate former Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, in the armed robbery case.
He also told the court that Kyari offered him a visa to any place of his choice if he supported the move to implicate Saraki, but he declined.
The police charged five defendants, Ayoade Akinnibosun, Ibikunle Ogunleye, Adeola Abraham, and two others, with criminal conspiracy to rob banks, murder of nine police officers and other residents, and illegal possession of firearms.
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Approximately ten people were feared murdered during the incident, while other Offa residents were injured.
During cross-examination by defence counsel, Mr Mathias Emeribe, SAN, Akinrinbosun stated that he was promised N10 million to claim that Saraki ordered the brutal robbery.
According to him,” he (Abba Kyari) said I should admit and say Saraki was the one who asked us to go and rob. I told him I won’t do that. That I will rather die for what I didn’t do than lie against an innocent man.
“He asked me to think over his offer very well. At this point, he ordered officers Hassan and Mashood to return me to the cell, a separate one from where others were and that they should stop torturing me.”
Akinrinbosun claimed he was not allowed to write anything in Ilorin but his bio-data until they were transported to Abuja in a tinted bus, where he was later detained in a facility known as Abattoir.
The suspect claimed that some herders were slain in his presence and that he was tortured and injured in the leg in order to implicate Saraki.
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Saraki, according to Akinrinbosun, had nothing to do with the robbery.
He said: “We were like 15 to 20 taken to Abuja, I only know few of them. We were put outside and served meals, but I couldn’t eat because my hands were paralyzed due to the torture I went through in their hands in Ilorin. They asked Kunle Ogunleye to feed me.
“They separated the five of us, put us in the generator house and Officer Hassan Attila ordered that they bring some men. They went to bring five men, Fulani men. They brought them and killed them all in my presence.
“I was told that was not a film. He asked me to stretch my legs and shot my right leg. He shot the second leg but when I tried shifting the leg, it hit my thumb.”
The defendant then proceeded to show the court the bullet wounds on his legs.
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Akinrinbosun went on to say that one of the robbery suspects, Michael Adikwu, was shot dead in his presence, which horrified him enough to agree to incriminate Saraki in a prepared statement before newsmen.
The trial judge, Justice Alimat Salman, delayed the case to February 13, 2023, to allow the hearing to continue.
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