From Bamigbola Gbolagunte, Akure
No fewer than 149 suspected criminals have been arrested across the 18 Local Government Areas in Ondo State by men of the Ondo State Security Network codenamed Operation Amotekun.
It was gathered that the suspects were inside trucks when they were arrested.
The State commander of the Corps, Mr Adetunji Adeleye made the disclosure while parading the suspects at the command’s headquarters in Akure.
According to him,”a couple of weeks ago, we started having very heavy influx of strange people within our forest reserve areas and within the Ondo State territory.
“Majority of the people who claimed that they were coming into the state as hunters were arrested around the black spots where we have robbery operations and kidnapping in the local governments where they were nabbed.
“They surprisingly and carefully concealed and kept their weapons, bags of Indian hemp and cutlasses under their vehicles and they claimed that they were coming from various parts of the country.
“If they are genuine hunters, why not come out openly, but one begins to wonder why they would come from the extreme parts of the country to hunt in a village, in a forest they have never been to before in Ondo State?
“No doubt, as Nigerians, they have the right to go anywhere in the country, but they do not have the right to go with weapons. As hunters, we expect that they would have made consultations to find out their limitations.
“We have very strong reasons to believe that they are the people that turn to kidnappers, armed robbers and commit various crimes, especially in the bad portions of the roads and in the forest reserves of the state,” he added.