POLICE NABS 96 SUSPECTED CULTISTS IN RIVERS

Rivers Police Command made a haul of 96 suspected criminals, among them robbery suspects just back from operations while two persons were reportedly killed during a shoot out by armed youths in a shootout today, in Okposi, near Omoku, in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers State, in a political-related clash.

The true identities of the killed victims could not be ascertained as at press time but were said to have been shot dead, following the burning down of the house of an aide to a Commissioner in Governor Chibuike Amaechi’s government.
A police source said that one of arsonists, who was later apprehended in the mayhem, confessed that he took the action because the commissioner’s aide refused to include his name in the Subsidy and Re-Investment Programme (SURE-P) list.
Rivers State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Ahmad Muhammad, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) confirmed the incident and the death of a person, adding that, the crisis was a spill-over of violence that occurred on Monday.
Muhammad stated that normalcy had returned in the area, following the deployment of six troopers.
Meanwhile, police, today, paraded four suspected armed robbers and 92 cultists at the Swift Operation Squad (SOS), Port Harcourt, who were arrested at different locations in the state.
According to the PPRO, who briefed journalists on the feat recorded by the Command, the four armed robbers were nabbed on Monday, at Akpajo Police check point at about 4:30 a.m., while returning to Port Harcourt, from their robbery operation in Akwa Ibom state.
He said that items recovered from them were a Sienna bus, with plate number RH 339 CH, N1.6 million, three locally made pistols, one locally made revolver pistol, ammunitions, 17 assorted cell phones and an International Passport belonging to one Akpan Usen Bassey.
Similarly, items recovered from the 92 suspected cultists included assorted firearms and ammunition; cutlasses, charms and other lethal weapons.
The Command, however, decried the upsurge of cult activities in the state, assuring that it would sustain its “belligerent and ruthless” onslaught on the cultists and their patrons.
“Their nefarious and deadly activities, which, sometimes, were attributed to politics, have, no doubt, constituted nuisance to the general public and have the capacity to truncate the electoral process”.
The command had called on members of the public for their credible information about the nefarious activities of hoodlums and their hideout.