Drama as cleric resists arrest, engages police officers in a fight

An Abeokuta, Ogun State, Grade 1 Customary Court sitting in Ake listened in surprise last Friday as a court orderly briefed it how an Islamic cleric, Alfa Abdulsalam Jegede, engaged four police officers who had gone to execute the warrant of arrest the court had placed on him in a fight. The court, presided over […]

An Abeokuta, Ogun State, Grade 1 Customary Court sitting in Ake listened in surprise last Friday as a court orderly briefed it how an Islamic cleric, Alfa Abdulsalam Jegede, engaged four police officers who had gone to execute the warrant of arrest the court had placed on him in a fight.

The court, presided over by Chief O.O. Akande who is assisted by Mrs. S.A. Ogunfemi, had last week ordered the police to produce Jegede before it on Friday November 3, 2017 after the cleric had refused to honour three consecutive invitations it had sent the father of two over a paternity row with his wife, Amudalat.

But the orderly, briefing the court on the outcome of the police officers’ effort to produce the cleric, said that Jegede, rather than submit himself, engaged the officers in a violent tango.

According to the female orderly, the cleric’s residence at the Somorin area of Obantoko, Abeokuta, was a drama scene for neighbours and passers-by who watched how the cleric vehemently resisted arrest.

“At a stage, I sent for more officers, yet he violently refused to be arrested. In fact, one of the officers had bruises on his arm during the incident,” she told the bewildered court, which also had in attendance the wife and her relations.

Chief Akande, who had to engage his partner, Mrs. Ogunfemi, in a discussion for several minutes over the matter, later ruled that there was little the court could do at that stage since the case was a civil matter, although he disclosed the court would write to the state judiciary for consultation with its legal department.

The court president urged Amudalat, who is the plaintiff in the suit, to be patient and assured her that justice would be done on the matter at the end of the day.

City News can recall that Amudalat had approached the court for dissolution of the five-year-old marriage over alleged neglect and maltreatment by her husband last August.

The duo, who appeared for the second time before the court on August 29, admitted that the marriage, which was solemnized under Islamic law in 2014, had broken down irretrievably.

The drama in the divorce had started when under cross-examination, Jegede denied the paternity of the second baby, even as he agreed that the expectant mother was under his roof till the period she gave birth.

The court had provided an option for a DNA test and told the cleric to go for consultations before coming for the test option. But since then, Jegede had been evasive in court, which prompted the warrant of arrest placed on him last week.