David Sunny, a 22‑year‑old baker, is demanding compensation after he says he was tortured by members of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) following a robbery at the bakery where he works. Sunny was employed at a bakery inside Unique Superstores, a supermarket in the Owode‑Ede area of Osun State. He reported that the bakery was robbed by an unknown individual who stole N3.8 million.
According to Sunny, the break‑in occurred on the night of 8 January. “Someone broke into the supermarket around 1 a.m. and robbed it until 5 a.m.,” he recounted. “It shocked us all—how could someone rob for that long without anyone noticing?” He added that the CCTV footage captured only the fact that the security guard on duty was asleep, and it did not clearly show the perpetrator. The manager later called Sunny at 7 p.m. on 10 January under the pretense of discussing bread production, but the call was a ruse to bring him to the office.
In the office, Sunny says he met Oriade, an OPC leader, and several others who took him to a remote location where they tortured him and forced a confession. “I kept pleading my innocence, but they beat me and set fire to parts of my body,” he said. He claimed that Oriade’s second‑in‑command raised a cutlass to behead him, but stopped before doing so. Afterward, Sunny was handcuffed and taken to a herbalist in Ore, who demanded N45,000 for his services; the herbalist’s divinations later declared Sunny innocent.
Sunny was later taken to an eatery by the bakery manager. He alleges that Oriade and his men came to his house to attack him again, but his boss’s presence forced them to leave. Feeling unsafe, Sunny fled to his uncle’s house in Osogbo. He reported the incident to the state Commissioner of Police, and his manager and the bakery’s chief executive officer were charged with kidnapping and suspected ritualism. However, Oriade and other OPC members did not appear at the police station.
The bakery’s manager, Abdulfatai Oyesomi, said he was unaware that OPC members would torture Sunny. He explained that the stolen money was a bank loan, which had placed great strain on the CEO, who was now on bed rest. “No one pointed to Sunny as a suspect; we wanted to arrest the security guard and let the police handle it, but the guard, who was linked to the OPC, insisted we let them investigate,” Oyesomi said. “They asked for Sunny to interrogate him, and we agreed, telling them not to hurt him. Leaving him with them was our mistake.”
After the ordeal, Oyesomi said the bakery took Sunny to a hospital, covered his medical bills and provided provisions. When Sunny left the apartment the bakery had given him and returned to his family in Osogbo, the bakery paid his family N200,000 and promised further assistance, noting that they also needed to resolve their own financial difficulties.
Osun State Police Public Relations Officer Opalola Yemisi said she was not aware of the incident. Deji Aladesawe, the OPC coordinator in the state, said he would respond to inquiries but had not done so at the time of this report.
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