Members of the Oodua People’s Congress in Osun State have been accused of torturing a 22-year-old baker, David Sunny, after N3.8m got missing in a bakery where he worked.
According to the victim, who is demanding for compensation, the OPC members burnt parts of his body with fire and cigarette stubs.
Sunny said he worked with the bakery in a supermarket, Unique Superstores, in the Owode-Ede area of the state.
Narrating his ordeal, the victim said on the day the incident happened, he was informed that an unknown person stole the company’s N3.8m, when he resumed work.
Sunny said the incident happened on January 8 when somebody broke into the supermarket around 1am and robbed till 5am.
He said, “It was when we checked the Closed-Circuit Television camera in the morning that we found this out and the security guard on duty slept throughout the operation.
“The person carted away a lot of money and there was no way to identify or trace him because the CCTV didn’t capture the person well. The only thing we could obtain from the CCTV was that someone broke in and the security guard slept off.
“The manager called me around 7pm on Tuesday (January 10) to ask about his bread production but it was only a guise to get me to the office.”
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He said he was taken to an unknown location and tortured to confess when he got to the office.
“I kept pleading my innocence, but it fell on deaf ears. They beat me and set fire under me, which burnt parts of my body.
“Oriade’s second-in-command raised a cutlass to behead me and they all kept saying I should say my last prayers.
“He was making some incantations but when he got to my neck, thankfully he stopped. He kept telling me that I was stubborn,” he added.
The victim said he was taken to a herbalist’s shrine, who charged them N45,000 and declared him innocent after some divinations.
He said the manager later took him to an eatery, after which Oriade and his boys visited his house again to inflict more pain on him but he was saved by his boss.
He said he left Owode-Ede to his uncle’s place at Osogbo out of fear for his life.
“We reported the matter to the state Commissioner of Police and my manager and chief executive officer were charged with kidnapping and suspected ritualism.
“However, Oriade and other OPC members did not show up at the station,” he added.
Sunny demanded compensation for the injuries he suffered.
The manager of the bakery, Abdulfatai Oyesomi, stated that he did not know that the OPC members would torture the victim.
He said, “My brother, who is the CEO of the bakery, is currently on bed rest because of all he lost and all that happened. The money stolen was a loan from a bank and this has troubled my brother greatly.
“No one pointed at him (Sunny) as the suspect; we wanted to arrest the security guard and let the police take over, but the guard came from the OPC guys and said we should allow them to carry out their own investigations.
“They asked for Sunny and said they wanted to interrogate him; we agreed and we told them not to hurt him in any way. The mistake we made was leaving him (Sunny) with them.
“When we saw him after the whole thing, we took him to a hospital, sorted his medical bills and bought him provisions. When we even found out that he left the apartment that we gave him and went to his family’s place in Osogbo, we settled with his family. We gave them a sum of N200,000 and we will still do more. He said he wanted to do some business and we said we would still give him something but we need to sort ourselves too.”
The Osun State Police Public Relations Officer, Opalola Yemisi, said she was not aware of the incident.