A 22-year-old baker, David Sunny, has demanded compensation after he was allegedly tortured by some members of the Oodua People’s Congress after N3.8m was stolen from a bakery where he worked.
PUNCH Metro gathered that Sunny worked with the bakery in a supermarket, Unique Superstores, in the Owode-Ede area of Osun State.
He was said to have resumed as usual and was informed that the bakery was robbed by an unknown person, who stole N3.8m.
The baker said he was abducted by the OPC members to where parts of his body were burnt with fire and cigarette stubs.
Sunny said, “On January 8, somebody broke into the supermarket around 1am and robbed till 5am. It came as a shock to us all because how could someone rob for that long and no one would notice?
“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.”
Sunny stated that when he got to the office, he met one Oriade (the OPC leader) and some others, who took him to a location where he was tortured and asked to confess to the theft.
“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.
Sunny stated that he was later handcuffed and taken to a herbalist at Ore.
He said the herbalist requested N45,000 for his charges and after some divinations declared that he was innocent.
“Afterwards, I was taken to an eatery by the manager. Oriade and his boys came to my house to hurt me again, but fortunately for me, my boss was around and they had to go back. I went to my uncle’s place in Osogbo because I didn’t feel safe.
“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.
The OPC Coordinator in the state, Deji Aladesawe, said he would get back to our correspondent but had yet to do so as of the time this report was filed.
