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Police parade 79-year-old alleged arms supplier, others

By Charles Coffie Gyamfi, Abeokuta and Segun Olaniyi, Abuja
10 January 2018   |   4:25 am
Abdulrashid Riba, a 79-year-old man, who deals in supplying and selling arms to kidnappers alongside 18 others were paraded yesterday by the police.

Some of the suspects and seized weapons.

Abdulrashid Riba, a 79-year-old man, who deals in supplying and selling arms to kidnappers alongside 18 others were paraded yesterday by the police.

Riba, popularly known as “Baba Wakili” who confessed to committing the crime, said he was a hunter before he became the supplier of arms to kidnappers, and that he has sold more than five AK 47 rifles to the kidnappers.

“I was formerly a hunter. I have sold five AK 47 rifles. It was one Mohammed Dauje that usually bring the guns to me before I supply it to the kidnappers.”

Asked how much the kidnappers usually give him for the supply of the guns, he said “they usually give me N4,000, N2,000 and at times N1,000 to hire it.”

Some of the suspects include Bature Adamu, 40; Sani Nasiru; Samaila Yahaya, 30; Buhari Abubakar, 35; Kabiru Abubakar, 29; Sani Umar, 25; Sani Nasiru, 25; and Ibrahim Sulaiman, 22.

Others are Yahaya Abdullahi aka Kechi, 27; Bello Anji, 30; Ahmed Abubakar, 35; Adamu Lawan, 25; Audu Lawan, 30; Usman Mohammed, 20; Ahmadu Abdullahi, 34; Yahuza Yahuba, 25; Abubakar Abba, 25; and Adamu Haruna, 21.

Items recovered from them include eight AK47 rifles, 320 7.56mm AK47 ammunitions, 16 live cartridges, one GPMG ammunition with magazine, two pairs of military uniforms, charms and car breaking/unlocking tools.

Parading the suspects yesterday at Jere, Kaduna State, the Force Public Relations Officer (FPRO) Jimoh Moshood, said the IGP’s Intelligence Response Team (IRT) attached to Operation Absolute Sanity, to rid Abuja-Jere-Kaduna-Zaria highways and other major roads within FCT, Niger and Kaduna states of kidnappers, armed robbers and cattle rustlers, nabbed the suspects.

He said most of the suspects were arrested while exchanging gunfire with the personnel in their hideout along Kaduna-Abuja road. He added that four victims were rescued and have been reunited with their families.

Meanwhile, the police in Ogun State, on Tuesday, paraded 55 suspected criminals arrested for crimes ranging from armed robbery, kidnapping, murder, cultism to illegal possession of fire arms. They were arrested in various locations within the state between December 2017 and January 2018, according to the state’s Commissioner of Police, Ahmed Iliyasu.

Leader of a kidnapping gang, Oyewumi Musa, who was one of the suspects, told journalists that “in the first operation, we got N3 million ransom, in the second, we got N2.5 million and for the third and fourth, we got N1.5 million respectively from victims’ relatives.”

Two members of the gang from Ughelli allegedly linked up with the gang each time there was an operation.

The commissioner who paraded the suspects at the command’s headquarters, Eleweran, Abeokuta, said 39 arms, including AK 47 rifles, Pump Action guns and locally made pistols as well as 396 ammunition were recovered from them.

Also recovered from the robbers, according to the police boss, were eight vehicles snatched at different robbery operations.

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