Man whose N3.7m car engine was stolen says police have refused to charge suspects

A businessman, Mr. Oladipupo Ogunbiyi, who left his 2010 BMW in his landlord’s compound at Bode Thomas, Surulere, Lagos, and travelled abroad, came back in 2014 only to find out that the engine of the vehicle worth N3.7m had been removed and sold off.

He would later find out that the landlord’s driver, Ayodele Odunuga, and two mechanics had removed the engine under the pretext that the gasket had burnt.

Saturday Punch learnt that when Odunuga and his accomplices were later arrested, they confessed that they sold the engine for N5,000 and replaced it with a fairly used one.

But Ogunbiyi would have none of that. According to him, it is a clear case of theft.

This case is now at the centre of a row that has reached the office of the Inspector-General of Police, with Ogunbiyi calling on police authorities to probe the conduct of their men involved in the investigation and charge the suspects to court.

Ogunbiyi told Saturday Punch that when he reported the case of the “theft, conspiracy and malicious damage” at the Zone 2 Police Headquarters, Onikan, Lagos, the case was eventually assigned to one Inspector Akorede, who he accused of trying to sweep the case under the carpet.

“After the confessions of the three suspects at the station, they wrote an undertaking with the police to buy the new engine on or before October 20, 2016. I realised they were playing pranks and I called Inspector Akorede, who told me he could not charge the case to court because the three suspects told him I had been paid for the engine. He never called to confirm this from me,” Ogunbiyi said in his petition.

Ogunbiyi is seeking the intervention of the IG to ensure his men did their duty at the Zone 2 in charging the suspects to court.

A copy of the petition was also sent to the Chairman, Police Service Commission; Permanent Secretary of the commission; Chairman, Senate Committee on Police Affairs and the Minister of Police Affairs.