The Police in Bayelsa State, Monday, paraded seven suspects arrested with large cache of arms and ammunition. But the suspects claimed they are ex-militants conveying the intercepted arms to the Sector 2 Command of the Joint Task Force to surrender them and embrace the Federal Government’s amnesty. Parading the suspects at the State Police Command headquarters, the state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Aderenle Shinaba, said the suspects were intercepted at night in Ekeki area of the state capital by a police patrol team in a Gulf car with a Lagos plate number BJ 863 APP, on April 15. According to Shinaba, items recovered from the suspects include 52 locally made single barrel guns, two Sub-Machine Guns, one locally made pistol, one automatic pistol and 72 live cartridges.
While assuring Bayelsans of their safety, he said the suspects would be prosecuted as soon as investigations were concluded.
He added that the driver of the vehicle, who must have been forced to convey the suspects, might be used as a prosecution witness when the matter is charged to court.
On the claim by the suspects that they are ex-militants on their way to surrender the arms to the authorities of the JTF, the Police Commissioner queried if arms surrendering could be done in the night and without the knowledge of the police.
But, leader of the suspected gunmen, who identified himself as ThankGod Osuda, claimed they were heading to the Sector 2 Command of the JTF in Yenagoa, to surrender theirs arms and to embrace the Federal Government’s amnesty.
He said they are ex-militants in Southern Ijaw, who recently embraced the Federal Government’s amnesty, lamenting that they had been in the custody of special security outfit Operation Famou Tangbe, since April 15.
Contacted on the development, the Sector 2, spokesman of the JTF, Commander Francis Achukwu confirmed that they were coming to surrender their arms to embrace the amnesty programme.
He said the ex-militants have been surrendering arms to the JTF, despite the expiration of the amnesty granted to militants who laid down their arms.