By Mary BASSEY, Senior Investigator Correspondent Lagos/
LAGOS– COMMISSIONER of Police Lagos State Police Command CP Idowu Owohunwa has expressed shock over the proliferation of arms and ammunition in the country saying that he hadn’t seen one of the guns recently recovered from suspected armed robbers since he joined the police Force. The police boss drop this hint yesterday when he paraded suspected armed robbers and sundry criminals. According to him, one of guns, Spyder Victor recovered from suspected armed robbers was a unique gun saying that even the Police does not have it. He said, “The interesting thing here is not just the arrest but the recovery of this weapon from them. This arm is called Spyder Victor, it is a unique, strange and special gun; I have not seen such gun all my life, even the police doesn’t have. The suspects were two, one jumped down from the bridge in an attempt to evade Police onslaught and eventually jumped to death. So we are currently working to get to the root and to unravel how such gun entered the country.
It is a great concern to us as police officers on how these arms gets to the wrong hands.”Continuing, CP Owohunwa said his officers have been able to arrest six suspects in connection with the recent murder of Police officer around Airport Hotel in Ikeja saying they will soon have ther day in court. “On 3rdof August 2023 at about 2200hrs, based on intelligence gathering on the armed robbery incident around Airport hotel Ikeja that led to the brutal murder of a police officer and the carting away of his rifle, operatives of the Command embarked on a discreetinvestigation and arrested one Salami Ahmed ‘m’ aged 30, Ismaila Adio ‘m’ aged 22, Toheeb Muri ‘m’ aged 23, Seyi Olajide ‘m’ aged 24, Nelson Sunday ‘m’ aged 34 and James Nnamani ‘m’ aged 24 at their hideout in Alagbado and Amikanle areas of Lagos State. One AK47 rifle with twenty-one rounds of live ammunition were recovered. This syndicate is also responsible for robbing a popular night club in Ikeja on 19thof July 2023.The Command uses this opportunity to advice individuals and companies seeking police services to follow the right channel to avoid falling into the wrong hands. To this end, I have set up a taskforce headed by the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Operations to checkmate illegal duty by officers by identifying such officers and promptly arresting them for further disciplinary action. The taskforce.”The police boss added that the Command arrested no fewer than 66 suspects during the period unders review; saying, “Before you today we have a total ofsixty-six(66) suspects who have engaged in varying crimes including armed robbery,unlawfulpossessionofarms,impersonation,cultism,murder etc. From allthese cases which we successfully cracked, we recovered a totalof fourteen (14) firearmsincluding two AK47 rifles, one of them locally fabricated, two(2) locally fabricated toy guns, fifteen(15) live cartridges, four (4) expended cartridges,twenty-five(25) live ammunition, five (5) machetes,thirty-four (34) bags of weed suspected to be Indian hemp,six (6)vehicles, two bags containing fake US Dollars, fake Pound Sterling note,two (2) award plaquesfrom Buccaneer fraternity, one (1) Buccaneer banner, a pair of police camouflage uniform, a jack knife, police identity card,two hoods, black pipes some quantity of weed suspected to be Indian hempand sixty-sixkegs of fake Total engine oil.”
