The police in Ogun State have reacted to a viral video in which officers were accused of causing a road crash while chasing some suspected internet fraudsters in Igbeba area of Ijebu-Ode.
In a statement on Thursday, the Ogun State police spokesman, Abimbola Oyeyemi, said a Toyota Camry car driven by a mechanic, with registration number LSR 59 HS, had on May 17 knocked down a commercial motorcyclist, Ganiyu Musiliu, while on high speed.
Instead of the driver to stop and take care of the seriously injured okada rider, Oyeyemi said “he ran away.”
According to him, the vehicle was being pursued by some eyewitnesses, adding that the police patrol team from Igbeba division, stationed along Molipa road was alerted about the car coming towards their end.
“The patrol team, having sighted the car, tried to block it from escaping and that resulted in the accident,” he stated.
He explained that some miscreants at the scene, who were ignorant of the reason for blocking the car by the policemen, made an attempt to attack the policemen, saying they were dispersed by the DPO of Obalende and his men, who he said raced to the scene.
twiscoloaded learnt that the injured Okada man was rushed to State Hospital, Ijebu-Ode and the driver was arrested.
He expressed surprises to read on social media that the policemen were chasing the car because they thought the rider was a Yahoo Boy and that the driver died on the spot
“The command hereby wishes to state that all these narratives are far from the truth as no life was lost and the whole incident has nothing to do with the issue of Yahoo boys,” Oyeyemi stated.
While saying the State Commissioner of Police, Olanrewaju Oladimeji, had ordered full scale investigation of the incident, he appealed to the public to always find out the truth before posting information on social media.
He described as the height of insensitivity, efforts by some people to downplay the incident because it happened to an Okada rider.