The Women Arise for Change Initiative on Monday, 29th April 2019 in Osogbo, Osun State, protested against the illegal detention of a nursing mother, Mrs Rofiat Oladepo and her nine months old son by the Zone 11 of the Nigeria Police Force.
The protest which was led by the President of Women Arise and the winner of the American Government’s Award of International Woman of Courage, Dr Joe Okei-Odumakin had over 200 women and men protesters who defied the scorching sun to express their displeasure over the illegal detention of Mrs Rofiat Oladepo and her son, a minor, a nine months old who were arrested and kept in custody of the Nigeria Police at the Zone 11 Headquarters in Osogbo in lieu of her husband.
The organization described the action of the police as a violation of the victims’ universally recognised fundamental human rights and the law of the land.
In her remarks while being received by the Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of the Zone, AIG Leye Oyebade and his management team, Dr Joe Okei-Odumakin asserted that, “We are pained and disappointed that the Nigeria Police held in custody a nursing mother and her baby, in lieu of her husband. Not only were they arrested and detained by proxy, they were also detained beyond the constitutionally sanctioned period. It is most nauseating to learn that Mrs Oladepo and her baby who were arrested on the 24th April, 2019 at Dural Toaheed, Oke Anu area of Ede and taken to Zone 11, Gbogan road, Oshogbo, were kept in inhuman conditions, only to be released later and given the sum of N500 (five hundred Naira) only as their transport fare back to Ede”.
