Police arraign Wadume, 18 others for alleged terrorism, murder

The police, yesterday, arraigned kidnap notorious suspect, Bala Hamisu (a.k.a. Wadume), and 18 others for alleged terrorism, murder, kidnapping and possession of illegal arms.

Wadume and others were arraigned before Justice Binta Nyako at the Federal High Court in Abuja. He arrived at the court alongside his co-defendants amid tight security by the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP).

The police had on February 3, 2020, slammed a 16-count charge on the suspects, including SSgt. David Isaiah, Sgt. Ibrahim Mohammed, Cpl. Bartholomew Obanye, Pvt. Mohammed Nura and LCpl. Okorozie Gideon.

Others are Cpl. Markus Michael, LCpl. Nvenaweimoeimi Akpagra, SSgt. Abdullahi Adamu, Pvt. Ebele Emmanuel, ASP Aondona Iorbee, Insp. Aliyu Dadje and Auwalu Bala, (a.k.a. Omo Razor).

The rest in the charge sheet are Uba Bala (a.k.a. Uba Belu), Ahmad Suleiman (a.k.a. Dan Ball), Bashir Waziri (a.k.a. Baba Runs), Zubairu Abdullahi (a.k.a. Basho), Hafizu Bala (a.k.a. Maiwelder) and Rayyanu Abdul.

The arrest of Wadume, seven months ago in Taraba, followed the killing of three policemen and a civilian by soldiers at a checkpoint. Wadume then escaped until his re-arrest in Kano State. Since his re-arrest in August 2019, very little had been heard about him.In a viral video after he was picked up in Kano, Wadume said soldiers attached to Battalion 93, Takum in Taraba State, released him.

From the court filings, the bedrock of the police case is the kidnap in Takum on February 16, 2019 of a petrol dealer, Usman Garba, by Wadume’s gang.

It indicated that the gang demanded N200 million ransom during negotiations for the release of the petrol dealer.Despite that relations of the victim were able to hand over N106.3 million to the gang, he was killed.

The police stated that the prosecution would rely on the testimonies of 29 witnesses to prove their case.

“DCP Abba Kyari, CSP Baba Khali, ASP Abdulrahman Mohammed, ASP Bawa James, Insps Habila Samuel and Ilarju Joseph are the Investigating Police Officers (IPOs) in this case; they will testify about their findings in the course of the investigation, and will tender exhibits and documents,” the police said.

According to the documents, the charges were filed by Simon Lough, Anthony Egwu and Peter Amadi of the Legal/Prosecution Section of the Force Headquarters (FHQ), Abuja.

They were also accused of possessing six AK-47 rifles and dealing in prohibited firearms contrary to section 27 (1)(a)(I) and (1)(b)(iii) of the Firearms Act.