Officers of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), an arm of the Kwara State Police Command, are unwilling to release an aged street sweeper, Abdullateef Awawu Ibidun, and her granddaughter, Balikis, who are both in their custody, despite an order to that effect from higher authorities, FIJ can report.

In reaction to our initial report, Mohammed Ladi, son of the mother, was invited on Wednesday morning to the Kwara State Police Command to secure the release of the two detainees. 

READ MORE: Police in Kwara Demand N400,000 Bribe from Detained Street Sweeper, Granddaughter

Ajayi Okasanmi, the Kwara Police Public Relations Officer, had also promised to unravel the infraction while asking FIJ for more details into the case.

After Ladi and other members of the family had spent over five hours waiting at the CID, the event took a turn that indicated the police’s clear disregard to the order from the Complaint Response Unit of the Police Force Headquarters in Abuja.

Opeyemi Kolawole, the officer-in-charge of the case, told the family to either deny knowing or speaking with FIJ or tell this newspaper to pull down the report before Ibidun and Balikis can be released. 

One of the family members was also forced to write down the name of FIJ reporter, Gabriel Ogunjobi, although he refused to be goaded into writing anything further indicting.

“It seems they are after you,” one of the family members, who asked not to be named, said.

“They want us to deny knowing you and publish a report about that tomorrow as a precondition for releasing the two detainees.”

READ ALSO: Two Policemen in Kwara Busted a Car Theft Ring. Their reward? A Sack!

FIJ had recently reported about how two detectives of the Kwara State Police Command were dismissed for unraveling a car theft network in December 2018. 

Meanwhile, the Complaint Response Unit is still investigating the report that indicted top officers of the command, including some from the same CID.