Published 17th Nov, 2021

After spending 10 months in an Ekiti prison, Monday, 15, and Ayomide, 16, regained their freedom on Tuesday.

The two brothers were tried and forgotten in prison after they were accused of stealing eye drops for their blind father.

In a Facebook post, Tope Temokun revealed that although the teenagers were not caught committing any crime, the police arrested them following a tip-off by a neighbour that they brought things home without any source of income.

Subsequently, the police visited and searched the teenagers’ house but did not find anything except eye drops. Typical of the Nigerian Police, they asked the boys for the receipt of the medicine. On failing to provide it, the police arrested them.

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“The teenagers were not charged to court in Ikole Ekiti where their blind father lived, but were taken to Ado Ekiti to be charged before a magistrate court which [had] remanded them in prison since February 2021,” Temokun said.

He said the boys were released following the efforts of Benjamin Obilor Esq., a lawyer from his chambers. According to Temokun, Comrade Moyinoluwa Emmanuel, the activist who found the boys, was detained in the same prison with them over his participation in the October 2020 #EndSARS protest in the state.

Temokun said he learned about the boys’ ordeal from Moyinoluwa, who was passionate about their release.

“I was moved by Moyinoluwa’s passion for justice. On the day he spoke with me for the first time, he said since he left prison, his conscience had not let him rest anytime he remembered those two teenagers in prison,” he said.

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