Operatives of the Ogun State Command of the Nigeria Police have arrested two suspected members of Aiye Confraternity over their involvement in an attack on a vigilante.
The command’s Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Abimbola Oyeyemi, said the suspects, identified as Balogun Opemipo (26) and Onabanjo Korede (27), were arrested after the vigilante, Salami Azeez, reported at Ijebu Igbo Police Station on how he was attacked by the cult members.
Azeez told the police that he was contracted as a vigilante at the Aleke area of Ijebu-Igbo, and was on duty at about 1:30am, when he saw three boys moving around the area.
He said when he challenged them on their mission in the area at such an hour, they attacked him with an iron rod, inflicting serious injury on his head.
The PPRO said that after receiving the report, the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Ijebu-Igbo Division, SP Kazeem Solotan, mobilised his patrol team to the scene, where two of the attackers were apprehended. The third one escaped.
Oyeyemi said that the police discovered, after their arrest, that the two men were among those on the command’s wanted list for their involvement in various cult-related clashes in Ijebu-Igbo and its environs.
The two suspects confessed to being members of Aiye cult group, which had been terrorizing the area for quite a while.
Korede, a barber from Molusi in Ijebu Igbo, said he was initiated into the cult group in 2019. He also admitted hitting the vigilante man with an iron rod found with him.
He also said that a certain ‘Chamber’, who initiated him into cultism, had relocated to Lagos State.
Opemipo also confessed to being initiated into Aiye Confraternity in 2018 by one Duella, who he said had relocated to Abuja.
But they both said they had never killed anyone as members of the cult.
The PPRO said that the state Commissioner of Police, Edward Awolowo Ajogun, had directed that the suspects be transferred to the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Eleweran, Abeokuta, for discreet investigation and subsequent prosecution.
