How our ‘Alfas’ raped, tortured and turned us into cannibals - Olore’s detention camp inmates

By Rotimi Omole

Alfa Olore with fetish objects recovered from
him by the police."Our Alfa often demanded to have sex with us, we always obliged them since we had no option, at times they would ask us to ‘wash’ during our menstrual period, and take the water away,” we were even given concoctions drained from the corpses of our dead colleagues to drink.”

The statement captures the dehumanising treatment meted out to inmates of Olore Arabic School of Rehabilitation Centre, Ojoo, Ibadan by the proprietor of the school, Alfa Mohammed Olore, who was accused of running an illegal camp where more than 130 inmates were kept under dehumanising conditions. While female inmates were said to have been lured into illegal sex against their wish and abortion procured for them, other inmates who spoke to Crime File said they were given water drained from the corpses of inmates who had been beaten to death by their masters.

Mohammed Olore told newsmen recently when he was being paraded along with others by the Oyo State Commissioner of Police, Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) Prince Udom Ekpoudom that he had been managing the Olore Arabic School of Rehabilitation Centre in Ojoo for eight years.

Though the suspect was last Thursday arraigned at Iyaganku Magistrate Court along with 11 others who also assisted him to run the centre which could best be described as a detention camp, the atrocities which the suspect had perpetrated against the 92 inmates of the camp, including female inmates whose ages range between 18 – 22 years still continue to reverberate in the memories of members of the public as curious parents still thronged the Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) Dugbe to catch a glimpse of some of the malnourished inmates rescued by the police.

On Thursday evening when Crime File visited the SARS office in Dugbe, few of the inmates were still being fed with food brought to the station at the instance of Aare Musulumi of Yorubaland, Alhaji Azeez Arisekola Alao, who, on humanitarian grounds, offered to take care of the inmates who looked gaunt as a result of the dehumanising conditions of the camp.

Crime File reliably gathered that the victims were taken to the centre mostly by their parents for rehabilitation from mental illness, drug abuse and waywardness while some were said to have been there for spiritual cleansing and Quranic learning.

One of the six female inmates among them, an 18-year-old girl (names withheld) told Crime File that she was subjected to sexual abuse which once led to pregnancy.

According to her, “Our Alfa often demanded for sex from us, we always obliged him, he would ask us to ‘wash’ during our menstrual period and take the water away.”

Crime File also learnt that a medical doctor and a nurse who were alleged to have procured abortion for the female inmates have also been arrested while an Islamic cleric, Alfa Ali Ademola was also arrested by the police in Orogun area of Ibadan for allegedly torturing a trainee to death few days before police stumbled on the detention camp.

Another inmate of Olore detention camp who spoke with Crime File, Azeez Dauda, also revealed that inmates who committed offence in the camp were often given 40 lashes of the cane twice daily while some were tied down with chains like criminals.

According to him, “we were administered with concoctions made from water with which dead inmates were washed, more than 25 inmates have passed away in the last two years as a result of severe beaten and hunger in this place, there’s a grave at the backyard where Alhaji Olore dumped inmates’ corpses after he might have removed vital parts.”

When asked whether parents of the dead inmates often visited the camp to ask about the welfare of their wards, Dauda said most parents don’t bother to ‘look back’ again the moment they dump their wards.

According to him, “some of these parents are heartless and wicked human beings, apart from the fact that Olore also teleguided them spiritually to forget them, our master ensured that he made them to sign an undertaken to the effect that in case of death during training, he will not be liable. I’m sure they will now be regretting their actions when the bubble has now burst.

Exhibits recovered by the police from the suspects were: three cars; N32,000 cash, three spades, concoctions, a jar of black soap and plastic container with reddish water allegedly drained from the corpses of the dead inmates.

Convicted along with Mohammed Olore, the proprietor of the camp, were his assistants, including Alfas Sheriff Salami, Yusuf Owolabi, Ismaila Balogun, Lukuman Olalekan, Taye Ogunlofin, Aderogba Adeniyi, Mohammed Adeyemi, Dauda Atanda, Nureni Ogundele and Iyabo Oni.

As Mohammed Olore now cools off in Agodi Prison custody with others, a member of the public identified as Alhaji Biliaminu Yusuf who commended the police for their recent breakthrough in a chat with Crime File however enjoined parents against abandoning their children in rehabilitation homes.

According to him, “Rehabilitation homes are good for reformation of stubborn children if only the operators are humane and friendly, certainly Olore detention camp and its operators should be put ‘out of society,’ they are heartless and wicked human beings, no sane person would condone such barbaric act in a civilised society like ours.”