The Ogun State Police Command says it has arrested a landlord in Onipanu area, Ota, in Ado Odo/Ota Local Government Area of the state, Sunday Omosule, for allegedly killing the son of one of his tenants with a pestle.
The deceased was four-year-old Joseph Akpan.
The landlord, according to police report, allegedly chased his tenants with the pestle until he caught up with the victim’s mother.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, Abimbola Oyeyemi, said as he caught up with the mother who was carrying the baby, he hit the mother in the hand and hit the baby on the head with the pestle.
Oyeyemi said, “The landlord was arrested following a distress call received by Police at Onipanu Divisional headquarters of the command at Ota.
“The distress call had it that the said landlord went berserk and started using pestle to chase his tenants, consequent upon which he used the said pestle to hit the mother of the deceased on the hand before using it to hit the victim on the head.”
After receiving the information, Oyeyemi said, the Divisional Police Officer, Onipanu Division, Sangobiyi Johnson, led his men to the scene where the suspect was arrested.
On interrogation, Oyeyemi said, the suspect claimed to be under spiritual attacks which always “make him to behave erratically sometimes.”
Oyeyemi, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, said the mother of the deceased who, sustained injury in the attack, has been taken to the hospital where she is responding to treatment.
He said the remains of the victim had been deposited in the mortuary at the State General Hospital, Ota, for autopsy.
Meanwhile, the state Commissioner of Police, Ahmed Iliyasu, has ordered that the suspect be transferred to Homicide Section of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Abeokuta, for further investigation.