A Chief Magistrates’ Court, sitting in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, has ordered the remand of alleged notorious Fulani warlord in Ibarapaland, Abdullahi Wakili, in a correctional facility.
Seventy-year-old Wakili was remanded in Iyaganku on Tuesday.
Wakili, alongside his sons, Abu, 45; and Samaila, 45, were charged by the police; as well as Aliyu Manu, 20; with six count-charges bordering on conspiracy, murder, kidnapping and armed robbery.
The Chief Magistrate, Emmanuel Idowu, who did not take the plea of the suspects for want of jurisdiction, remanded them in Abolongo Correctional facility in Oyo State.
Idowu ordered the police to return the case file to the Oyo State Directorate of Public Prosecution for appropriate advice.
He thereafter adjourned the matter to May 17 for mention.
Recall that Wakili and his accomplices were arrested by men of the Oodua Peoples Congress, OPC, in Oyo State.
Before Wakili’s arrest, farmers and residents of Ayete, Kajola, and neighbouring villages in Ibarapaland lived in perpetual fear of Wakili, who was accused of displacing them from their farms, kidnapping their rich men, and raping their women.
A legal practitioner, Oritsuwa Uwawa, appeared for all the suspects.
Earlier, the prosecution counsel, ASP Adewale Amos, told the court that Wakili, Abu, Samaila, and Manu, on October 20, 2015, conspired to kill 32-year-old Akinwale Akande.
Amos also said that on August 15, 2020, about 4pm in Idi–Emi, Oyo State, Wakili, and the others kidnapped a woman,claiming that the suspects while armed with cutlasses and axes robbed her of N100,000; an offence, he said, contravened the provisions of sections 316, 324 and punishable under Section 319 of the Criminal Code of Oyo State, 2000.
The prosecutor also siad that the offence contravened the provisions of sections 3 and 6, and punishable under section 4(2) of the Kidnapping (Prohibition) Law, 2016 and Section 6b of the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provisions) Act. Cap RII, Vol.14, Laws of Federation of Nigeria, 2004 and section (2) (a) and (b) of the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provisions).
