Families of the victims of 2018 Offa robbery have sued Kwara state government, seeking N2.1 billion in compensation.
Gatekeepers News reports that in the suit brought before a high court in Ilorin, the claimants through their counsels; Johnson Usman, Yakubu Philemon, M. Abubakar, and A. Philip, claimed that their relatives were killed by armed men in a robbery attack on Nigeria Police Station, Owode and various banks in Offa on April 5, 2018.
They also alleged that the state government was complicit in the robbery, stating that several exhibits used in the robbery were spotted in the government house during the tenure of Abdulfatah Ahmed, former Governor of the state.
The claimants claimed that the convicted robbers had confessed to being members of a political group associated with Bukola Saraki, former president of senate, with the exhibits recovered from the crime scene and presented in court included vehicles branded ‘Saraki’.
They said that one of the suspects, Ayoade Akinnibosun (aka AY) who has been convicted of the crime, confessed that the third and fourth defendants, Saraki and Ahmed are their political sponsors and that they make ‘dabaru’ arrangements and “scatter elections” if they do not win.
The claimants further stated that the convicts confessed that they had been political thugs to the third and fourth defendants and they were prompted to engage in the robbery because of it.
According to the claimants; they deserve to be compensated for the killing of their relatives, many of whom are breadwinners of their families.
The victims’ families are seeking that the court order the defendants to pay N1.5 billion as compensation, N500 million as general damages, and N100 million as cost of the suit.
The families suing for compensation over the 2018 Offa robbery were represented by Abraham Makinde, Lateef Raheem, Adeshina Ayesanmi, and Monsurat Adebayo.
The defendants include the Kwara state Governor, the state’s attorney-general, former Senate President Bukola Saraki, and former Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed.
