Jethro Ibileke/Benin
If only the number of criminals arrested by security agencies could guarantee safety in society, the streets of Edo State should be safe from criminality for a while, as the State Police Command paraded a total of 102 suspects on Friday.
The suspects were arrested from across the State, for offences ranging from cultism, fraud, kidnapping, armed robbery and murder.
The State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Babatunde Kokumo, who paraded the suspects before journalists at the Command headquarters in Benin, advised criminally-minded persons to either repent or relocate to other places, else, they will face the full wrath of the law.
He alleged that many of the suspects who escaped from the long arms of the law in neighbouring States, were caught in Edo following a crack down on criminal hideouts in the State.
Many of the suspects confessed to the crimes they were accused of, and narrated their level of involvement in the crimes.
Among suspects paraded was 14-year-old Anna Amos, who was arrested last Wednesday, for the alleged murder of 71-year-old Madam Helen Adodo, a day before, by smasshing her head with a stone.
The teenage suspect who had lived with the septuagenarian since March 2018 at Guobadia Street, in Benin, said some unseen spirit controled her and told her to kill the victim.
Anna further disclosed that the occultic spirit sternly warned her never to disclose that she was the one responsible for the death of her victim.
Also paraded was 26-year-old Wisdom Olocha, an indigene who was accused of capable of opening any locked door after knocking the door with a wring strapped to his finger.
The suspect who denied opening doors with rings, however said he was arrested after breaking into a car and stealing a woman’s bag from the car.
Items recovered from the various suspects include laptops, cellphones, undisclosed amount of money, banned drugs, cutlasses, assorted sophisticated arms and ammunitions and locally made cut-to-size guns.
The CP, Mr. Kokumo, who commended cross section of the public whom he said supplied the useful information which led to the arrest of the suspects, pleaded with them to sustain the collaboration.