The death of Police Inspector Taiye Atobaloye, who was detained at the ‘D’ Division of the Kogi State Police Command, has been ordered to be investigated by the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba. The incident occurred after the police officer, who was attached to the Oke Onigbin Police Division in Kwara State, was posted to the Zone 8 Police Command in Lokoja on special duty. Taiye had initially declined the posting after a disagreement that another inspector was meant for the assignment.
After his attempt to reverse the deployment failed, he reported at the zonal headquarters for the special duty and was detained in a cell for absence from work without permission. His wife claimed that his phone was collected from him as she last spoke to her husband at the point he was being thrown into a cell. She said attempts to reach him on the phone afterwards were abortive.
The woman further alleged that after a week, a policeman called a family friend with her husband’s phone to say he was dead. Taiye’s wife believes he was killed and said: “They collected a lot of money from him and tortured him to death.” However, the Force Public Relations Officer, Muyiwa Adejobi, assured the family that justice would be served.
Adejobi said that details from the zonal headquarters report showed that the inspector had been posted on the 1st of April, 2023, reported on the 11th of April, and was immediately posted as part of the team manning the main gate of the zonal command headquarters.
However, he failed to report at the duty post and went missing for nine days, only to resurface on the 19th of April in a drunken state. He was eventually detained for absence from duty and drunkenness. While in detention, he reportedly took ill and was moved to the police clinic, then referred to the Federal Medical Centre, Lokoja, where he eventually died.
The Inspector-General of Police has commiserated with the families, friends, and loved ones of the deceased and has tasked the Criminal Investigation Department’s Homicide Unit of the Kogi State Command to commence investigations and conduct a postmortem examination on the corpse to determine the cause(s) of his death.
