Ogbonna Casmir, Enugu
The operatives of Enugu state police command has arrested the principal suspect in the murder of the seven tricycle riders known as ‘Keke Operators’ and buried in a building foundation in Ugwuaji suburb of Enugu south council area of the state along Enugu – Port-Harcourt express way in the early February.
The operatives also arrested other suspects for offences ranging from; armed robbery/car snatching, conspiracy, murder, child trafficking and unlawful possession of firearm, rape and vandalism of oil pipeline among others.
Parading the suspects before the newsmen the State Commissioner of police, CP Nwodibo Ekechukwu reiterated his solemn promise to the residents of the state and its environs that no criminal can operate in Enugu for too long before the arms of the law will catch-up with them, saying that his command will make the state ungovernable for criminals.
He said the murderous of seven ‘Keke Operators’ one Nonso Azubuike and Kennedy Ihunegbo started their nefarious activities in Abuja where they had earlier killed five commercial motorcycle riders and stolen their motorcycle in 2014.
The police commissioner disclosed that the two suspects further spread their operations to Nasarawa State, especially in Ado area where they had stolen so many motorcycles. He revealed that when the dreaded murderous entered the Keffi, the same year they met brick wall when a man they thought they had killed raised alarm leading to the arrest of Azubuike by the police while Ihunegbo escaped. “Azubuike managed to get out of the case at Keffi and both of them relocated to Enugu in early January, 2016.
“They met at a hotel in Abakpa suburb subsequently, where they conspired to go after tricycles and their operators, as commercial motorcycles their previous attractions had been barred from operations in the state.
According to commissioner the suspects started their operation in the same January, by stopping and entering tricycles at a point along Ogui Road or Mosque area of Artisan and requesting their victim on each occasion to drop them at their purported building site at Ugwuaji, off the Enugu/Port Harcourt Expressway.
CP Nwodibo disclosed that the suspects also ask each tricycle operator conveying them to drop them at their purported building site, which normally in a lonely place. “They would then request the operator to carry blocks for them in the tricycle, to another location and as he bent to carry the block he would be hit with a very big iron hammer on the head repeatedly till he died.
He said that this method the suspects used in killing the seven tricycle riders in January and March at various times of the days.
One of the suspects Azubuike confessed to the crime when our correspondent interviewed him. He said his co-accomplice had been killed by the police in the custody even as he has asked for mercy.
