NINE persons arrested and detained in Oyo Agodi Prison since 2020 have regained their freedom on Tuesday.
Hobnob News reports that the ‘Oyo9’ whose names are: Adeshina Muyiwa, Ikechuckwu Eze, Ariyo Sodiq, Ikenna Amaechi, Oyewole Olumide, Ariyo Afeez, Taoreed Abiodun, Adekunle Moruf, and Rasheed Tiamiyu, were charged for offences ranging from murder to stealing of police rifles, setting the police station ablaze, among others, in connection to the 2020 protest against the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad unit of the Nigeria Force.
Hobnob News also reports that this is coming barely 24 hours after the Oyo State Chief Judge ordered the release of 58 detainees who had spent long periods in the state prisons.
Hobnob News had also reported barely three months ago, (October, 2022), that about 39 persons arrested in connection to the #EndSARS protest were still languishing in prison
Five days after the report, two of them were released from Lagos Kiri Kiri Maximum Prison.
Releasing some inmates on Monday, the Oyo State Chief Judge, Justice Munga Abimbola, had declared that prolonged detention was a breach of people’s constitutional right, reiterating that the stand of the law is that a “person is presumed innocent until proven guilty.”
The CJ made this declaration at the Agodi Custodial Centre of the Nigerian Correctional Service, where he visited, as part of a three-day tour of prisons within the state.
