Suspected cultists attacked and killed a 30-year-old barber, Toheen Folarin, in the Obantoko area of Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital on Tuesday, January 7.

A statement released by the command’s spokesperson, CSP Omolola Odutola, says the victim was said to be working in his shop when, suddenly, at about 10pm, the assailants emerged and shot him on the left side of the chest. Before fleeing the scene, the assailants severed the victim’s left hand and made away with it.

On receipt of the information, the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Obantoko mobilized and led a team of detectives, with additional support from a patrol team and the Anti-cultism Unit of Adatan Area Command at the scene, where they found the victim in a pool of his own blood and his severed hand.

A scene was thereafter created as attempts by the officers to extricate the corpse to the mortuary were vehemently protested by irate youths, saying, as a Moslem, he had to be buried in accordance with Islamic rite.

Odutola added that the command had launched a manhunt for the killers and that the heightened tension and restiveness that greeted the incident had been put under control.

SOURCE

Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, started the new year with the arrest of a wanted drug kingpin and Lagos socialite, 61-year-old Alhaja Aishat Feyisara Ajoke Elediye on Wednesday 1st January 2025 in her mansion at Okota area of Lagos following the interception of a truckload illicit drug consignment from her staff same day.

A statement released by the anti-drug’s spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, says the suspect who is known in the drug underworld as “Iya Ruka”, and Alhaja Ajoke in social circle, has her true identity shrouded in mystery for years while she remained on the wanted list of NDLEA for leading one of the drug cartels operating from Mushin area of Lagos.

“The lid was however blown off her invincibility on Wednesday 1st January 2025 when NDLEA operatives acting on intelligence intercepted a white Izuzu truck carrying 44 jumbo sacks containing 1,540 kilograms of imported cannabis and driven by one of her staff, 41-year-old Abideen Adio. Thereafter, the operatives stormed her hideout at 33 Adebayo Oyewole street, off Ago Palace way, Okota, where they arrested her.

Babafemi stated that on the surface, Alhaja Ajoke is a businesswoman who imports fabrics and shoes from China but beneath is a massive illicit drug trade. She is also recognized as the Iyalaje of Blessing Sisters, an influential club of society women in Lagos.

Ayomide Adeleye, the young man who confessed to killing Christianah Idowu, his friend and neighbour, is not in any correctional facility in Lagos State, FIJ has confirmed.

First arrested and remanded in September, rumours of his release began spreading in December, leading friends and family to worry over the state of the murder case against him.

FIJ earlier reported that efforts to verify these claims led the newspaper to insiders in the police force who said they had heard the same claims but information was limited by the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS).

“The police handed him over to the Ikoyi Prison, but the judiciary is slow in its dealings. The warrant doesn’t expire, so I wonder how he secured release for a murder offence,” they told FIJ.

FIJ then made some findings in the NCoS and learnt from a credible source with access to records that there were two persons bearing ‘Ayomide Adeleye’ in their custody, but none was charged with murder and both had since been freed.

This source said, “We had one in Ikoyi and one in Kirikiri Medium, but they are no longer with us here. They have been released. None of them was charged with murder or kidnapping.”

When FIJ asked for a reiteration, the source said, “There is no Ayomide Adeleye in any prison in Lagos. Maybe you should ask the police because they are the ones who obtained the remand warrant.”

FIJ made several attempts to reach Benjamin Hundeyin, the Lagos State Police spokesman, but he did not respond to our calls or messages. Muyiwa Adejobi, the Force Public Relations Officer, promised to find out and get back to FIJ.

Adeleye, a 200 Level Philosophy student of the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ogun State, confessed in early September to killing Christianah Idowu, a 300 Level student of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB).

On November 5, he appeared before Seyi Omodara, a magistrate at the Ogba Magistrate Court, and she granted a remand warrant to the police to detain him at the Ikoyi prison pending when the DPP’s advice becomes available.

FIJ wrote to the DPP three days later, but despite promising to get back to the newspaper, the directorate has yet to do so.