Cross section of the suspects and items recovered from them

Jethro Ibileke/Benin

If only the number of criminals arrested by security agencies could guarantee security in the 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 for offences from across the State, 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 suspects who escaped from the long arms of the law in neighbouring States, were caught in Edo following a crack down on criminal hideout in the State.

Many of the suspects confessed to the crimes they were accused of, and narrated their level of involvement in the crimes.

Some of the suspects and weapons allegedly recovered from them

Among the suspects paraded was 14-year-old Anna Amos, who as arrested last Wednesday, for the alleged murder of 71-year-old Madam Helen Adodo, a day before, by smashing 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 took hold of her and told her to kill her 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 indigenes who was said to be capable of opening any locked door after knocking the door with a ring strapped to his finger.

The suspect who denied opening doors with the ring, however said he was arrested after breaking into a car and stealing a woman’s bag from the car.

Items recovered from the paraded 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.