By Okey Maduforo Awka.
Anambra Vigilante Services AVS has smashed three camps of gunmen in a village in Awka Capital City where it made arrests of some gang leaders and recovered arms in the process.
Similarly an Awka High Chief and retired Deputy Inspector General of Police Ozo Celestine Okoye has accused some Community leaders in the area of sponsoring cultists who disguise as revenue agents.
The operation which has been on going since the rising spate of killings have been on in the last two weeks.
Unconfirmed reports has it that about thirteen suspected cultists and kidnappers have so far been apprehended and handed over to the state Police Command while a catch of arms were recovered.
According to the Commissioner for Homeland Matters Chief Chikodi Anarah this is against accusations that the government of Gov Charles Soludo has not been responsive to the issues of insecurity in the state.
“It is laughable that some people have gone to town with a wrong impression that security has collapsed in Anambra state because of pockets of attacks ”
“Simply because we have chosen to operate undercover doesn’t mean that we are not working and in such operations we don’t go about talking about it in the media because of its implications on investigations”
“There is a village in Awka which I would not want to mansion the name for very obvious reasons that is harbouring three camps of gunmen and when the AVS stormed there based on information available to us we made a lot of arrests ”
“This is an area where Keke Tricycle operators are taken to at gun point and they are forced to pay as high as N150,000.00 before they are released and if you fail to pay you are beaten up and you lose your Keke also”
“We recovered a catch of arms and charms as well as plate numbers of Keke and also android phones which they snatched from unsuspecting members of the public but I don’t want to expose the number of suspects that we have arrested but I can tell it is more than the thirteen you are talking about ”
Retired Deputy Inspector General of Police Ozo Celestine Okoye while reacting to the successes recorded in crime fighting urge the Anambra state government to turn their search light to some influencal people in his home town in Awka Capital City.
“This thing is not about just Cultism but the fight for revenue windows and who has the right to control them and this has led to the killings in Awka Capital City ”
“If the state government wants to stop this it has to investigate the roles of some people in Awka who are very influencal among the people because they use their position to sponsor those boys ”
“If government wants to show seriousness about this it is easy to expose them and also those that are involved in land deals and land grabbing in Awka and that is the only way out “
