Police parade schoolgirl arrested with gun, lover in Cross River

The Cross River State Command of the Nigerian Police has arrested and paraded a man, Okon Effiong, said to be the owner of the locally-made double barrel pistol seized from a 17-year-old female student of Government Secondary School, Ikot Ewa in Akpabuyo Council.

The girl, Promise Idorenyin, who is an SSII student and member of a local cult group, Sky Queen, was also paraded yesterday alongside Effiong and 11 other suspects of sundry crimes in the state.

Idorenyin, who was reported to have gone to school with the gun with an intension to shoot one of the teachers for insisting that she cut her coloured hairdo, confessed that the gun was owned by her sexual partner, Effiong, a farmer with six children.

Effiong, who looks far older and claimed to be 38 years old, told newsmen that he intended to marry the young girl and “her parents know about us. I have been helping the mother and the girl,” but the young girl rejected.

He claimed that the gun was to be taken to a blacksmith for repairs and he did not give it to the girl but took it to her house, where he sleeps sometimes.

State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Sikiru Kayode Akande, who paraded a total of 13 suspects before newsmen, pledged the commitment and determination of the Command to combat crime in the state by deploying modern facilities and equipment to achieve a target of three minutes response time to any security challenge reported at anywhere within the state.