Police arrest 126 suspects in A/Ibom

The Akwa Ibom State Police Command has said it arrested 126 suspects within the first quarter of 2023 for various crimes.

 The Commissioner of Police, Olatoye Durosinmi, said during a press conference at the weekend in Uyo that the crimes for which some of the suspects were paraded included kidnapping, armed robbery, cultism, vandalism, murder and rape.

Durosinmi explained that the synergy between the police and other sister agencies during the period which incidentally covered the pre, during and the post 2023 general elections, helped the police to record the feat.

The CP stated that four of the paraded suspects kidnapped a retired permanent secretary in the state, Mr Ignatius Brown, an indigene of Abak LGA, and demanded a ransom of N80 million after seeing a huge sum in his bank account through the victim’s handset. 

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He cautioned people to be security conscious and avoid keeping alerts of huge sums in their phones, saying they made kidnappers demand huge ransom sums.

He added that though the police advised the family against paying the kidnappers any ransom, out of desperation, the victim’s family gathered money and paid the suspects.

He, however, said the police operatives were able to trace the kidnappers’ hideout, rescue the victim and arrest some suspects, and recovered one locally made pistol, and three wooden guns, though some of the suspects escaped. 

 Meanwhile, one of the suspects, Sunday Ekwere, confessed to having received N850,000 as proceeds from the ransom they collected.