Wailings and lamentations enveloped the immediate and extended family of Dr. Adewunmi Ariyo, in April, 2013 after the medical practitioner was gunned down by armed robbers late at night after returning home from work. Until his death, the late Ariyo was former vice chairman of Kwara state chapter of the Medical and Dental Association of Nigeria (MDA).

Reports say the gunmen, numbering six, laid ambush for the victim at the entrance of his Basin residence in Ilorin where he was reportedly seized and dragged to the sitting room of the building. The attackers also collected his car keys and a DVD player before climbing up the staircase to meet his wife, a nursing mother. They told her that her husband had been killed and urged her to cooperate by handing over her jewelries and other valuables to them.

Ariyo, an indigene of Oko in Irepodun Local Government Area of the state, worked in the Dental Department of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, (UITH) until the unfortunate incident. He was also the proprietor of the popular Unity Dental Clinic on AbdulWahab Folawiyo road in Ilorin. He left behind his wife, two daughters of less than 10 years and a three-month old baby.

Residents say his death was just one bad manifestation of the several armed robbery attacks that the state has experienced in recent times.

Beside medical doctors who frowned at the spate of robbery attacks in the state, many residents especially in Ilorin metropolis complain of having to sleep with their two eyes open for fear of robbers. More worrisome is the spiraling cases of car snatching at gunpoint in broad daylight.

However, the Kwara State Police Command claimed it has recorded major breakthroughs in its efforts to rid the state of armed robbers and other criminals, who have been terrorizing the state. It stated that it is part of the efforts that has resulted into the arrest of the suspected killers of Dr. Ariyo.

The police added that the feat has laid to rest doubts about whether the police would bring the perpetrators to justice as expressed by the family of the slain doctor.
Three suspects were paraded by the police in connection with the murder of the medical doctor. They are: Adewunmi Kayode, aka Shanky, 36, Abiodun Abdulmalik Ojulari, 32, and Akeem Afolabi, 31.

However, the state police were able to track them down by tracing one of the stolen blackberry phones to a lady, according to the Police spokesman, DSP Femi Fabode, who paraded the suspects before journalists on behalf of the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Agboola Oshodi-Glover.

The suspects, he said, confessed to be members of a seven-man robbery gang and that three of them with two other members of the gang, Olatide Oladapo, aka Dampson and one Seun, ‘M’ participated in the robbery and killing of the deceased.

Speaking with journalists, the robbers confessed to be armed robbers but said the medical doctor was killed in error. “It was not our mission to kill him but one of us, Seun, who is still at large mistakenly fired the shot”, says one of the suspects.

Kayode claimed to be a graduate of a tertiary institution in the state. Ojulari on his part said he was a Physics graduate of a University in the North-West, saying unemployment lured them into robbery.

The state police command similarly paraded another robbery suspect, Segun Abraham aka NASS, 28, who was arrested with one locally made pistol and three live cartridges. He was said to be a member of a five-man gang that attacked and robbed former vice-chairman of Offa LGA, one Hon. Adeleke. Also, three suspects who were arrested by military men in Offa Local Government Area of the state over recent attack on the former Chairman of the Local Government, Prince Saheed Popoola, were paraded.