The Nigerian Police on Monday debunked the rumour on the
existence of an underground cell at the forest of horror discovered in Ibadan,
the Oyo state capital, recently.
The state police command’s Public Relations Officer, Olabisi
Okuwobi-Ilobanafor, who made the disclosure to journalists on Monday during a visit of a
team of forensic experts to the scene, urged Nigerians to endeavor to say the
truth always.
Members of the Odua Peoples Congress, OPC, who discovered the site had alleged that one of their members, a motorcyclists, who was traced to the forest, was calling from an underground cell.
"How can a human being survive underground for more
than three weeks without food or drink? Where will they get power to charge the
phone people have been saying someone was calling with? It is mere rumour and
figment of their imagination and a machination of rumour mongers.
“People should not carry rumours that will have
psychological effects on families of missing people. They should be logical in
their reasoning. They should stop making the world to think that we are
Liliputians who cannot put their common sense to use,” she said.
After three weeks of discovery, a team of experts had stormed
the forest located on Sokas area of the state capital on Monday to collect item for
investigations.
According to the state police image-maker, the Inspector
General of Police Mohammed Abubarkar sent a team from Abuja to join other two
teams in Ibadan to carry out the exercise.
The other teams are from the state police command and the
University College Hospital, UCH, Ibadan.
The team of police from the State Criminal Investigation
Department, Iyaganku, Ibadan, led by an Assistant Commissioner of Police,
Dasuki Galadachi, accompanied the forensic team to the Soka forest at about
10.40 a.m.
Men of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corp (NSCDC)
were also on ground to monitor the exercise.
Before their arrival, twenty policemen were already on
ground to provide adequate security while the exercise lasted.
“One of forensic teams from the Force Criminal Investigation
Department, Abuja led by Babale Aminu, was actually sent by the Inspector
General of Police with four others including a forensic pathologist, Dr Eze
Nwom, who led the team of pathologists, with an anthropologist. A professor,
Dr. Olawoyin from the UCH, who is also with them, deals with anything relating
to throat to the head.
"They are here to pick up evidence and exhume bones
that were buried to give them forensic analysis,” Okuwobi-Ilobanafor, a Superintendent of Police, said.
She added that the exercise was also necessary for futuristic
reason.
“The team is going to exhume the buried bodies and bones for
forensic analysis. Anybody whose relatives might have been declared missing
could go for forensic test so that it could assist in determining whether they
are related to any of the bones", she said.
The state PPRO said the team was out to execute the final
stage of the investigation to unravel the mystery surrounding the discoveries
at the evil forest, adding that the state government would take over thereafter.
Since the site came to limelight last three weeks with
shocking discoveries, the world had awaited full investigation to the people
behind the deaths and famished looking individuals found there.
The discovery had also pitted the state government against
the opposition Accord Party, who insisted that the former (Oyo state government) gave the space for the commission
of crime associated with the site.
Already, the police said it had arrested seven people in
connection with the activities at the forest.
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