A Pastor, Edinor Sunday accused of looting medical equipment from Kogi medical store has accused the Nigeria Police Force of framing him up.
Sunday was among the 56 suspects paraded by the Kogi State Police command on Wednesday, in connection with alleged looting of a medical equipment store on Monday.
The suspect, who is in charge of a church in Kabba junction, while fielding questions from journalists, noted that when some suspected hoodlums were shooting sporadically along zone eight on Monday, he had to abandon his faulty car to save his own life.
According to him, when he came back to toe his faulty car with a van, he was gripped with shock to see that it had been stocked with some materials which he immediately evacuated.
Unfortunately, he said, he never knew that some of the medical equipment was also kept in his booth before the police surrounded him to explain how the medical equipment came into his car.
His words “I was coming from my province, I am going back to Kabba junction, suddenly I saw some masked men shooting with hilux. They were shooting sporadically and I was running. Suddenly my bottom plate in my car got scattered. And people started shouting.
“I parked the vehicle and ran away. After some time, I came back. When I came back, I saw medical equipment on my vehicle. I also looked inside, I saw some because the doors were open and where I jumped out from was also open.
“So, I removed everything from my car since they don’t belong to me. I now asked somebody within the area to help me look at my car because I want to go and look for a towing van. I went for a towing van, I brought it to the spot where my car got spoilt.
“While the towing van was about to jack my vehicle, the police just surrounded it. They said I should open my car”.
When newsmen asked the suspect if the looted items were inside his car when the police surrounded his vehicle, he quickly responded, “No, this item you see in my car now, it was the police people that packed it inside. It was on the ground when they came. They were picking it and throwing it inside my car.
“As a matter of fact, they also throw some of the items inside the towing van. They framed me up”.
He, however, said he didn’t call the police when he discovered that some materials had been packed into his car when he was away.
“There was apprehension everywhere. Everybody was scared and running for their lives. My own is just to move my vehicle out of that place. So there was no way I could call the police.
“The items inside the vehicle, I dropped them down myself. I didn’t notice that there was anything inside my booth. They were trying to open the booth, I told them that the thing is central lock. The police now asked me to open the side, they now forced it to open.
“My superior pastors have come and others have come to see me. I am on my own, I have a school and I am feeding well. I cannot be leaving on this” he added.
It could be recalled that the Pastor was arrested on Monday in a manhunt led by the Kogi State Commissioner of Police, Ayuba Ede Ekpeji.
The looted medical equipment was estimated to worth N1.2billion.
