The Edo State Police Command, yesterday, paraded six persons for allegedly performing ritual at the Edo State Secretariat, along Sapele Road Benin City.

The suspects are Wilson Imasuen, Collins Ojo and four others

Addressing newsmen during their parade, the Public Relations Officer of the command, SP Chidi Nwabuzor said the state government recently frowned at land grabbing and have some persons declared wanted.

He said today, the police got the wind that some group of persons have gone to the secretariat to perform ritual and they were arrested.

“You heard some months ago, to be precise, June 2022, the Edo State government came out with policy against land-grabbing and this they took off for implantation and named some persons in their gazette to be arrested.

“And few communities like Okhoromi was touched in this issue of land grabbing.Today, the 17th of November, 2022, some persons paraded themselves in the name of protest and moved down to where we call secretariat, that is the Palm House along Sapele Road, Benin City with some animals and spilled the blood there in terms of ritual against the Edo State government for the policy implemented against land grabbing.

“Immediately, the intelligence came to the command and through collaborations with other security agencies, the vigilante, they were arrested and brought to the command for further investigation,” he said.

Speaking on what happened at the rally, one of the suspects, Collins Ojo said the protesters comprised persons of various faith and thus cannot stop anyone from exercising his or her faith.

“Right there while we were protesting, there were Muslims, Christians, some traditionalists were there because they told us that there are traditionalists in their midst.

“I can’t stop any traditional persons from expressing himself as a traditionalist. I saw Christians praying, I saw Muslim praying too alongside with the protest.

”Everybody was doing their thing. What happened is that, immediately I turned my back, I saw that some persons have already slaughtered fowl inside the native pot,” Ojo said.

But the other suspect, Wilson Imasuen, denied any knowledge of ritual activities during the protest.

”A formal letter was transmitted to the CP that we are going to have a peaceful protest and it was slated for today.

“This morning, we converged on the Museum ground. That was where we took off. The protest was peaceful. There were even police officers and Civil Defense that led us throughout the protest.

”By the time we got to the Secretariat, when we were addressing the crowd, people were making noise behind us.

”So, I left the crowd to calm the noise and when I came back, they said a fowl was killed. I didn’t know when they did that.

“So, immediately we finished from there, we went back to the Museum ground and as we were there to disperse the protesters, before we knew it , police officers and vigilante just drove him and everyone started running.

“That was how they arrested us and brought us here”, he said. (Daily Sun)

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