Andulrasheed Akogun, a journalist and Mass Communications scholar in a recent WhatsApp group post took the words right out of my mouth on the release of the 48 suspects recently arrested in Kwara South.
Like many colleagues in the media, I braced for the usual script—a parade, screaming headlines, and another rush to brand poor men as “bandits.” Instead, something extraordinary happened: the police profiled them thoroughly and released them.
In a country where insecurity has turned suspicion into a weapon, and where simply looking like a northerner can invite trouble, this act was nothing short of courageous.
The 48 were not criminals, just ordinary men caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This episode should force us to reflect. How many innocent lives have been wasted because communities mistake profiling for justice?
We have become too comfortable with jungle verdicts, too quick to celebrate corpses as proof of safety, without asking whether the fallen were guilty in the first place.
But here is the difference: for once in my near three decades as a journalist, I have seen the police reject cheap validation and stand for fairness.
Under immense communal and institutional pressure, Kwara State Commissioner of Police, Adekimi Ojo, chose professionalism.
In a state where young men have often been profiled, thrown into detention, or even buried under false charges, this single act of courage stands out like light in darkness.
CP Ojo deserves his flowers. He deserves them because he reminded us that the job of the police is not to satisfy the mob, but to defend justice.
He deserves them because his decision saved 48 families from needless mourning, and perhaps, spared Kwara South another cycle of anger and blood.
Let this be a turning point—for communities to resist jungle justice, and for security agencies to double down on finding the real criminals terrorizing our people.
Ifelodun and all of Kwara South must be reclaimed, but never at the cost of innocent blood.
Justice, not hysteria, will win this war.