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From Aloysius Attah, Onitsha
Barely one week after Garba Umar assumed office as the Commissioner of Police in Anambra State, the command has foiled a bank robbery and arrested five suspects for various criminal activities.
Parading the suspects at the command headquarters in Awka yesterday, Umar, flanked by other senior officers of the command, said two suspects, Michael and Praise, had gained entrance into Union Bank, Nkpor, but were arrested as they attempted to break into the bank’s strongroom.
He said the suspects had confessed to the crime, and items recovered from them included drilling and sawing machines.
Also paraded was one Nonso, who was arrested with a blood-stained bus, with one locally-made double-barrel pistol and two live cartridges.
The commissioner disclosed that Nonso and his gang robbed passengers and road users along New Parts, Nkpor, Onitsha.
Items recovered from the suspects included foreign currencies, 5,688,500 CFA, 25 assorted GSM handsets and one laptop.
Another suspect, Emeka, a local vigilante operative, also recounted to reporters during the parade, how, on June 22, 2017, he killed a yet-to-be-identified victim on the premises of a beer distributor in Oko, Ekwulobia, Aguata LGA, where he worked and buried the corpse in a shallow grave.
Preliminary investigation revealed that the suspect beheaded the corpse and burnt it before burying it in the shallow grave, fuelling suspicions of ritual killing.
Umar pledged that the command, under his watch, would make Anambra State a “no-go area for criminals.” He called on residents to take the message to the entire state, and work with the police to sustain the peace in the state.
He said the command had put in place intelligence-led policing and crime prevention strategies aimed at sustaining the tempo law and order, to make Anambra the safest state in Nigeria.
