BY OLA AJAYI
IBADAN — Oyo State Police Command, has arrested three new suspects alleged to have been involved in the killing of the factional Chairman of the National Union of Transport Workers, NURTW, Alhaji Lateef Salako (a.k.a. Eleweomo). The three suspects were picked up at the Oyo State High Court.

The Senate Leader and three others had earlier been arraigned and discharged by a magistrate court in Ibadan for the alleged murder of  Alhaji Salako. The state Secretary of the union,  Lekan Aleshinloye, and other members of the union had appeared before Justice Folajomi Iyabo Oyelaran as plaintiffs in another matter that involved the union and the police.

While the court proceeding was going on in court, Victor Adewole, counsel to Alhaji Layeef Akinsola akaTokyo came to the court and said some policemen were chasing Aleshinloye about in the court premises.

He told the judge,  “I can’t understand what this society is being turned into. My client is now being chased about in the court premises simply because he appeared in court for the plaintiff.

If we cannot get protection outside, I believe people should be able to secure protection in the court. Please,  your Lordship, I want you to give an order that my client should not be arrested. He needs to be protected. He has done nothing. Why should the police be chasing him about just because he was in court on behalf of the plaintiff?

But the judge said he had no application before him with such prayers. He said, “there is no application before me.

The party is not before me and I am not aware of what is happening outside this court room now. What order do you want me to make in this circumstance? The issue is a sensitive one as everybody knows. I don’t have any interest in the matter and I don’t want anybody to drag my name on the ground. Very soon my name will be on the pages of newspapers.

This is what I don’t want. So, I cannot make any order now.”

Immediately the judge rose, the policemen combed the court and arrested the suspects.
They were later arrested from the scene. The Commissioner of Police, Alhaji Baba Adisa Bolanta, confirmed the arrest saying “I am aware that some NURTW men were picked up. They were picked up in connection with the murder of  Eleweomo and they are to be interrogated.