13042019 - KILLING FIELDS OF NORTH WEST:They killed my husband, our three children in my presence – Zamfara survivor

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38—SATURDAY Vanguard, APRIL 13, 2019 •Bombed banks ATM Bloody Bank Robbery In Ondo: •How robbers surveyed terrain for 3 days before they struck •Angry when the N3m targeted was delayed •Shot seven dead, injured five, blew off security door, ATM. Dayo Johnson Akure. FOR three days, the 10-member robbery gang that robbed a commercial bank in Idoani in Ose council area of Ondo state and killed seven people walked freely on the streets unnoticed. The robbers had arrived the town, lodged in an hotel and for three days they were busy studying the terrain waiting patiently like a lion for the auspicious time to strike. According to a reliable police source, the robbers were targeting the sum of N3m that they were told would be brought to the bank that Monday morning before noon. At about 2pm on Monday, they eventually struck leaving a trail of blood, sorrow, grieve and wailing. Six persons were gruesomely murdered in cold blood on the spot while the seventh person managed to get to the hospital before he gave up the ghost. Those killed in the bank robbery include a police Inspector, one of the bankers, four bank customers and the Vice Principal of Idoani Grammar School, Mr Oluloro who was at ATM point when the robbers blew it open. Five other persons who were seriously wounded as a result of the gun shoot injuries they sustained are lying critically ill at the General Hospital ldoani. It was a sad day for the people of the agrarian community. The dare devil bandits who were said to have entered the community from either Edo or Kogi operated unchallenged in the bank for over one hour. But for the timely intervention of some soldiers deployed to the scene of the robbery after the police detectives According to a reliable police source, the robbers were targeting the sum of N3m that they were told would be brought to the bank that Monday morning before noon appeared helpless as a result of the superior weapons displayed by the bandits, the casualty figures would have been more than seven. One of the bandits was arrested by the soldiers while others fled the scene after they were notified that the soldiers were coming for them. Reliable police source said the bandits were acting on a privileged information that money would be brought to the bank that day. But it eventually failed to arrive at the particular time they were given due to some delay from the main branch of the bank. By the time the robbers arrived at the bank for their operation, the bullion van had not arrived. This reportedly angered them and they went berserk shooting everyone in sight. Information of the robbery reportedly got to the officers accompanying the bullion van to ldoani later and they had to make a detour. Weekend Vanguard gathered that the robbers who divided themselves into four different groups arrived the bank during the peak period of banking operation and blew open the security door with dynamite. Two of the groups reportedly headed straight into the banking hall after blowing open the security door while the third group went to the ATM point. The forth group it was gathered manned strategic positions outside the bank in a bid to give cover for the gang operating inside the bank. Security guards attached to the bank fled following the sporadic shooting by the bandits on arrival at the bank premises. It was learnt that a distress call was made to the soldiers and when the robbers saw that the arrival of soldiers would spell doom for them, they fled the scene with an unspecified amount of money stolen from the vault and the ATM. According to an eyewitness, after blowing open the security door, the bandits walked into the banking hall shooting sporadically. The sound of the dynamite and the damage done to the security door reportedly caused pandemonium inside bank, the robbers then became confused and in the process started shooting at everyone in the banking hall. They reportedly found their way to the vault where they moved some cash into their bags while other members of the gang raided the cashiers and some customers they met inside the banking hall. Reports had it that the bandits also invaded the residence of the traditional ruler in the town, Alani of ldoani Oba Olufemi Olutoye who was not at home when the bandits visited. They broke into the house by damaging many of the doors but left when they discovered that the occupant was not at home. In annoyance, the house and the fence were riddled with gunshots. Meanwhile, four other suspects including two bank officials have again been arrested by police detectives in respect of the robbery. This is coming as the state governor Rotimi Akeredolu who visited the town to commiserate with the people had given a marching order to all security agencies in the state to go after the bandits and ensure their arrest. Five suspects have already been apprehended in respect of the robbery and have been moved to the state police headquarters in Akure for further interrogation. Reliable police source hinted that the suspect who was arrested during the shoot out between the security operatives and the robbers at the scene of the robbery made some confessional statements which led to the arrest of the four suspects. The four suspects it was gathered have equally made confessional statements and gave police detectives lead that would help in apprehending other fleeing suspects. Contacted, Police spokesperson Femi Joseph said that the command was working assiduously to apprehend the fleeing suspects who robbed the bank and gruesomely murdered seven persons. Joseph appealed against citing of banks in isolated areas noting that it was easy for the robbers to operate in the bank on Monday unhindered because of where it was located. He said the robbery operation lasted for long hours because the bank had been overgrown with weeds and was located in a border town between Ondo and Edo states. Joseph said the Commissioner of Police and a crack team of investigators have moved to Idoani in order to arrest the other fleeing suspects. Meanwhile, the state governor Rotimi Akeredolu represented by his deputy, Agboola Ajayi, visited the town and paid a condolence visit to Alani of Idoani, Oba Olufemi Olutoye at his palace. The palace of the traditional ruler is a stone throw to the bank that was robbed on Monday. The governor who described the incident as unfortunate implored the “security agents to fish out those who perpetrated the attack on the bank and killed innocent people. Akeredolu assured that his administration would continue to partner with the security agencies to nip this kind of incident in the bud. Oba Olutoye said the bandits who also came into his compound and damaged his doors entered and fled the town through an abandoned narrow road constructed in 1925 beside the bank. According to him the bandits hid some explosives in the bush which detonated as they fled from the scene of the operation. Oba Olutoye who said that the town which shares borders with Edo and Kogi states has always been a get-away route for miscreants after committing crimes. He appealed to the state government to assist the people in securing the town in a bid to halt the infiltration of people of questionable character. Oba Olutoye also appealed to the state government to assist the family of the bereaved “in order to reduce the burden the incident had caused them. The state police commissioner Udie Adie said that security has been beefed up in all the banking zones across the 18 council areas of the state. A special meeting between security agencies and bank managers has been summoned to fashion out strategies of curbing further attacks on commercial institutions and their customers. Adie assured the public and bank customers that there was no cause for apprehension as more policemen had been detailed to provide security at flashpoints in and around banking zones in major towns across the state. In this command, he added “we will not allow such robbery to go unpunished. On the incident at Idoani, we have reinforced security in this area and other parts of the state especially banking areas; just as we are seriously progressing with our investigation. We are in the process of holding meeting with bank managers, which we call bankers’ forum”.
How we kidnapped, killed American soldier in Imo —Suspect •We got N26.5m from four operations By Ifeanyi Okolie Operatives of the Inspector General of Police Special Intelligence Response Team, IRT, have arrested seven members of a notorious kidnapping gang who masterminded the January 12, 2017, killing of a United States Army veteran, Chuks Okebata in Okigwe area of Imo State. The suspects who were identified as Sunday Igwe, alias, School Boy, Michael Ahmefula, Oyebuchi Echefule, Ndubusi Isaac, Victor Dagogo, Chima Okoro and John Edet, were said to have carried out several high profile kidnappings and armed robberies within Imo, Abia and Rivers State. They were all rounded up at separate locations while two Ak- 47 rifles and six magazines loaded with 127 live ammunitions were recovered from them. Vanguard gathered that efforts to apprehend these suspects commenced few months after the American soldier was kidnapped and killed. Sources disclosed to Vanguard that several persons who had fallen victims of the gang’s activities wrote petitions to the Inspector General of Police, Adamu Mohammed who then directed the operatives led by Deputy Commissioner of Police Abba Kyari, to track down the suspects. Vanguard gathered that based on the information provided by some of the victims, the IRT operatives in Abia State, trailed the leader of the gang, School-Boy to a hotel in Aba town where he was apprehended. A source who spoke to Vanguard on the condition of anonymity said “based on information about the gang, we arrested the gang leader Sunday The 29-year-old Schoool-Boy, who is a native of Bendel Local Government Area of Abia State and a secondary school dropout then narrated how he went into crime and how he carried out most of his operations. Okechuwu Igwe, a.k.a school boy, in a hotel. We were on his trail for six months before we eventually arrested him in January 2018 and recovered two Ak-47 rifles and six magazines loaded with 127 live ammunition from him. We then went after members of his gang and we arrested his second in command, Michael Ahamefula alongside another gang member, Oyebuchi Echefule, in a hotel in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. We then went on to arrest Ndubusi Isaac, Victor Dagogo, Chima Okoro and John Edet in Orlu and Aba areas of Abia and Imo States, who were all members of the gang”, the source stated. When Vanguard interviewed the suspects they confessed to be members of a deadly armed robbery and kidnapping gang terrorizing Imo, Abia and Rivers States. Why we killed the American soldier —Gang leader The leader of the gang, School- Boy, in his confession said that the American soldier, Okebata, was killed because he tried to kill them after he was kidnapped. He explained that he and members of his gang didn’t know that Okebata, had a pistol with him at the time he was kidnapped. He said, “we threw him into the boot of our operational vehicle after we kidnapped him and we didn’t know who he was. While we were heading to our camp where we would keep him and negotiate for his ransom, he pulled out his gun and started shooting at us from the boot. The bullet hit me on the leg and hit the driver on his hand. I then asked the driver stop the vehicle. We disarmed him, killed him at the spot and dumped his body inside a drainage and left. I had no intention of killing him but he forced us into doing it.” he stated The 29-year-old Schoool-Boy, who is a native of Bendel Local Government Area of Abia State and a secondary school dropout then narrated how he went into crime and how he carried out most of his operations. According to him, “after I dropped out of school in 2009, I went to Iwofe area of Port Harcourt where I learned how to drive truck and in 2010 I met some boys, Oshare and Op, at a smoking joint where they introduced me into crime. We started by snatching cars, my job was to drive the cars out of town and mostly to Eleme area of Port Harcourt, where it will be sold off and I earned N20,000 for each operation. After a while, I went back to my village and met one of my brothers, Samuel, who was also into car snatching and he allowed me joined his gang. I was linked to the gang leader, KC and we started snatching cars in Aba town. Samuel was the owner of the guns we were using to snatch the cars while he job Ejike, another member of our gang was to drive us in his car to the location where we would snatch the cars. I was earning N60,000 on each operation. I later met one Mazi, who introduced me into kidnaping and wanted a place where he would be keeping his victims. I provided my family house in the village and I was equally looking after the victims after they have been kidnapped. But later on some DSS men who came looking for him shot at me and got me injured, but I escaped and was taken to the hospital where I spent eight months. When I returned, I met KC again but this time, he was already into kidnapping and he had Ak-47rifles. I teamed up with him and we started kidnapping. Our first operation was in Imo state, we have no SATURDAY Vanguard, APRIL 13, 2019—39 specific target, we would just move round the city looking for people with flashy cars to kidnap. There was one man we went after but we didn’t know that he had policemen with him and the moment the policemen came down, we opened fire on them and killed them on the spot. We then collected their rifles and kidnaped a man we found inside the vehicle. We didn’t know that the man we kidnapped was an ordinary driver and not the owner of the vehicle or the person the policemen were protecting. We had also kidnapped one other person on the road before that incident and we took the two victims to our camp.” “After that operation, we all became very tired and slept off for a long time and our victims, who we left unguarded escaped and alerted the police. By the time we woke up we realized that the police were everywhere looking for us. KC was unlucky, he was gunned down while he was trying to escape and the police recovered one of his rifles. We stopped kidnapping for a long time but we resumed when we believed the police were no longer looking for us. On the night we killed the American soldier, we had three rifles with us and went out looking for victims. We then we spotted the American soldier in his Infinity SUV, we pursued him and kidnapped him put him in the boot of the vehicle without knowing that he had a gun with him. When we got to Ata Junction, on the Okigwe Road, the soldier started shooting and his bullet hit me on my hand. He shot the driver on the leg, then I came out, killed him and we dumped his body inside drainage. After that operation, I lost all my guns because some IRT operatives swooped on Mazi and Ejike and they took my guns from him. I then ran to Ghana when the operatives were after me and returned to Nigeria in November 2017 and resumed kidnapping. We realized N26.5m from four operations — Ahamefuna On his part, 28-year-old Michael Ahamefuna, who is the second in command in the group and married with two children said; “I reside in Port Harcourt and I am from Abia state. I am a trader and I met School-boy in a smoking joint where we took drugs. He had an injury in his leg then and he took me to his village where we met one KC. We formed a kidnap gang and kidnapped a man who paid us N1.5million. We went for another operation that fetched us N15million. We also kidnapped two other victims in Owerri and took them to Abia state and we got N10million from them. The last operation that got us into trouble occurred in October 2018 and we lost our leader in that operation”. Orgy of killings by policemen in Lagos: •Three adults, teenager, gunned down in one month By Evelyn Usman An unkind fate recently visited 67-yearold Mrs Olufunke Odebiyi, whose only son, Kolade Johnson, had life snuffed out of him, by a bullet from the riffle of one Inspector Ogunyemi Olalekan, who was attached to the Anti-Crime Unit of the Lagos State Police Command. Lagosians, in particular and Nigerians in general, will never forget in a hurry, how the 36-year-old football fan and father of one had his dream of reuniting with his girlfriend and son, in South Africa, shattered by that singular act of carelessness. Perhaps, had the 2013 graduate of Business Administration from the University of Benin known that death was lurking in a corner, he would have remained in his apartment that night, having just concluded a five days fasting. But his love for football propelled him to join other football lovers at a viewing centre and the rest is history. Late Johnson’s death sparked off protests in different quarters, including the UNIBEN alumni group, with a call for justice to be done. It is no longer news that the killer cop has been arrested, dismissed and presently being remanded in prison custody, pending the advice from the Directorate of Public Prosecution. This was done after he was found culpable of the offence, having been subjected to an internal disciplinary proceeding known as Orderly Room Trial by the Command. The Orderly Room trial commenced on Monday, April 1, 2019, and ended on Thursday April 4, 2019. He was tried alongside Sergeant Godwin Orji, on three count charges: (1) Discreditable Conduct (2) Unlawful and Unnecessary Exercise of Authority and (3) Damage to Clothing or Other Articles contrary to Paragraph E (iii), Q (ii) and D (i) First Schedule, Police Act and Regulations, Cap 370 LFN 1990. But Sergeant Orji was exonerated leaving Inspector Olalekan to face the consequences of his action. Aguda killing Investigation has however revealed that Johnson was not the only Lagosian sent to an early grave by the Police. Three other persons also had same fate befall them between March and now but the dust raised by Kolade’s killing apparently beclouded others. One of the killings occurred three days before Kolade’s death at Kilo area of Surulere. In this case, a Police Inspector, Paul Joseph who was to retire next month having spent 35- years in service, allegedly shot a motorcyclist dead. During interrogation at an Orderly Room Trial, 52-year-old Joseph stated that the Ogun residents live in fear of land grabbers *As two persons are declared missing By Victor Arjiromanus esidents of Agbara and Igasia Alegbemu communities in Ogun Rstate, now sleep with one open over fear of attacks by land grabbers. Already, two men, Musibah Olawale and Hakeem, popularly known as stainless, have been declared missing few days after they were threatened by some land grabbers. A member of one of the communities, Hassan Hakeem, explained that Musibah, bought a land from his Igasia Alegbemu family, but after sometime, a group of men who claimed to own the land threatened to kill anyone found working on the land. The duo of Musibau and Hakeem, according to him, were kidnapped while working on the farmland by armed men suspected to have earlier threatened to kill them. He said: “On December 1, 2018, one Mr Musibah Olawale bought 20 acres of land from my family at Igasia Elegbamu, Adodo, Ogun state. He also sold part of the land to his friend, Shotomide. While they were working on the land, 35 young men stormed the land by 3 deceased, Ademola Moshood and two others on the run were accosted at a bank at about 1am, on March 28, 2019. On sighting the police team, two of the suspects according to him, bolted leaving Moshood, the rider of the motorcycle behind. It was gathered that one of the policemen, Inspector Okolo Patrick, took the motorbike to the station, while Moshood was being interrogated on his mission to the bank at that ungodly hour. In the process, he was shot dead. During interrogation, Inspector Joseph stated that the deceased was struggling with the riffle he was carrying and his colleague Inspector Nsa Obu, thereby forcing him to open fire on him. But when his riffle was taken for ballistic analysis, the result confirmed that he fired a shot. He was also indicted by the autopsy result which showed that the deceased died of gun shot wound. He was thereafter charged for murder before an Ebute-Metta Magistrate Court on April 8, 2019 and the Presiding Magistrate, Mr. O.A Komolafe, ordered that he should be remanded in prison custody, pending an advice from the Department of Public Defender, DPP. 11 year-old girl too Also at Imota area of Ikorodu, Lagos, a teenager, Hadijat Sakiru was killed by a bullet from one Sergeant Mudi Emmanuel. The killer cop who was in the company of Inspector Godstime James, Sergeant Akintunde Tosin and Inspector Sunday Abidekun, was on patrol duty and had gone to eat at a canteen where the 17-year-old girl worked as sales girl. A colleague of the deceased explained that “when they came, they asked Hadijat if there was food and she said yes. But the next thing we heard was a gun shot, boom! with Hadijat lying on the ground, dead. During an Orderly Room trial of the team of policemen, others , except Sergeant Emmanuel, were released. It was discovered that he (Emmanuel) left his riffle which he hung on his neck, corked. In his attempt to remove it, he pulled the trigger, thereby releasing volleys of bullets, one of which hit the unsuspecting teenager. Although he claimed that it was a mistake but his defence did not hold water as he was faulted for not leaving the bullets in safety catch and also for hanging the riffle on his neck instead of carrying it the proper way. Sergeant Emmanuel was thereafter arraigned at Ebute –Meta Magistrate Court on March 22, 2019 and remanded in prison custody on the directive of the Magistrate, Mrs B.O Salawu. The fourth policeman arrested for shooting a Lagosian, is at the moment undergoing Orderly Room Trial, over a case of murder. pm on motorcycles. They were armed with guns, machetes, and other weapons. They asked all of us to lie down and started beating us and threatened to shoot those who raised their heads. They collected N500,000 from Musibah, the man who bought the land from us and N100,000 from his younger brother, Peter. They also went away with water pump machine and a power generating set belonging to one Mr. Shotomide as well as six Bajaj mortocycles. “Musibah, being the owner of the land, went to report at Agbara police station. The police arrested three of the suspects who were subsequently charged to court. But they were granted bail after few days. When they came out, they went around telling people that they would kill Musibah Olawale”. On March 27 this year, some men again stormed the land while Musibah was working with his boys. When they came, everyone ran for their lives but they went after Musibah and one of his boys, Hakeem, aka Stainless. They took them on motorcycles to Idolehin village. Since then, Musibah and Hakeem have not been seen even after we reported the case to the police.
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13042019 - KILLING FIELDS OF NORTH WEST:They killed my husband, our three children in my presence – Zamfara survivor

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