OPC members burn Osun Baker for stolen money

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 subway learned that Sunny worked at the bakery in a supermarket, Unique Superstores, in the Owode-Ede area of ​​Osun State.

He would have resumed as usual and was told that the bakery had been robbed by an unknown person, who had stolen N3.8m.

The baker said he was abducted by the OPC members to where parts of his body were burned with fire and cigarette butts.

Sunny said: “On January 8, someone broke into the supermarket around 1am and robbed until 5am. It came as a shock to all of us because how can someone rob for so long without anyone noticing?

“When we checked the closed circuit camera in the morning, we discovered this and the guard on duty slept through the entire operation.

“The person took a lot of money and there was no way to identify or trace him because the CCTV footage did not properly capture the person. The only thing we could glean from the CCTV footage was that someone had broken in and the guard had slept in.

“The manager called me around 7 p.m. on Tuesday (January 10) to ask about his bread production, but it was just a pretext to take me to the office.”

Sunny stated that when he arrived at the office, he met an 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, burning parts of my body.

“Oriade’s second-in-command raised a sword to behead me, and they all kept telling me to say my last prayers.

“He did some incantations, but when he got to my neck, luckily he stopped. He kept saying I was stubborn,” he added.

Sunny stated that he was later handcuffed and taken to an herbalist in Ore.

He said the herbalist had asked for N45,000 for his charges and after some divination declared him innocent.

“Afterwards, I was taken to a café by the manager. Oriade and his boys came to my house to hurt me again, but luckily for me my boss was around and they had to go back. I went to my uncle’s house in Osogbo because I didn’t feel safe.

“We reported the matter to the state police commissioner and my manager and chief executive officer were charged with kidnapping and suspected ritual.

“However, Oriade and other OPC members did not show up at the station,” he added.

Sunny claimed compensation for the injuries he sustained.

The manager of the bakery, Abdulfatai Oyesomi, said he was not aware 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 everything he has lost and everything that has happened. The stolen money was a loan from a bank and this has greatly alarmed my brother.

“Nobody pointed him (Sunny) as a suspect; we wanted to arrest the guard and let the police take over but the guard came from the OPC guys and said we should let them do their own investigation.

“They asked about Sunny and said they wanted to question 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, settled his medical bills and bought him provisions. When we even found out that he left the apartment we gave him and went to his family’s house in Osogbo, we settled with his family. We have given them an amount of N200,000 and we will do more. He said he wanted to do some business and we said we would still give him something but we also need to figure it out ourselves.

Osun State Police Public Relations Officer Opalola Yemisi said she was unaware of the incident.

The OPC coordinator in the state, Deji Aladesawe, said he would get back to our correspondent, but had not yet done so at the time of filing this report.