The 18 suspected criminals arrested in Ondo State with over 500 daggers and other weapons concealed under the seat of their vehicles have been arraigned and remanded at the Olokuta Correctional Centre in Akure.
The commander of the security agency, Amotekun, in the state, Chief Adetunji Adeleye, who disclosed this on Saturday, said the Chief Magistrates’ Court in Ondo ordered the remand of the suspects for allegedly being in possession of concealed dangerous weapons with an intent, allegedly, to conspire to perpetrate illegal act.
The security outfit had found over 500 knives and daggers concealed in a sack filled with tiger nuts inside the vehicle in which the suspects were travelling and promptly arrested all the occupants of the vehicle.
The arrest came a few days after soldiers from the 32 Artillery Brigade, Akure, withdrew from checkpoints and interstate boundaries across the state.
Other suspects travelling in two other vehicles escaped arrest.
He said the arrested suspects would soon appear in the court again.
The suspects claimed to have taken off from Kastina State in three 18-seater passenger buses before arriving in Ondo State and refusing to stop at every checkpoint within the state.
The Amotekun boss had, after the arrest of the 18 suspects, said: “We got intelligence that a group of men were coming to invade the state, so we set out our monitoring devices. And at precisely 1.30 a.m. on Thursday (November 4, 2021), we saw three hummer buses that we had actually been trailing till they entered the state.
“They had a brief stop just before they entered the town and our men tried to stop them but the three buses escaped so we had to radio all our control points and we were able to bring the three buses to a stop at a point on Ondo Road by a combined team of the police and civil defence.
“The buses attempted to overrun the security agents and speed off. The speed was so much that they hit all the barricades on the road and they took off again.
“We found out that it was difficult pursuing them in order not to cause accident, so we radioed our station on Owena and the security men there blocked the road to all vehicles.
“But they were able to escape by hitting the barricades again. We continued pursuing them while we called the Ile-Oluji Junction that they should block the road solidly but the drivers, again, escaped.
“But we later organised a complete blockage before the Akure Garage in Ondo town and we were able to apprehend them.
“They claimed to be coming to Akure and the driver said somebody commissioned them from Katsina State but that he didn’t know the content of the bag filled with tiger nuts.
“On opening the bags, we found some guns, rounds of ammunition and also found under the seat about 500 different types and sizes of daggers and poisonous jack knives cleverly concealed under the seats.
“When we asked them what they intended to do, they told us that they were just given instructions to go and that further instructions would be given to them.”
