17th January, 2018
Jethro Ibileke/Benin
Three suspects who were arrested in connection with the explosion that claimed one life in Okpela, Etsako East local government area of Edo State on Monday, have been paraded by the State police command.
The suspects, Idris Ibrahim (22), Zeinab Ibrahim (female) and Oyeza Abdul (female), were arrested in Okugbe area, near Iddo, Okpela, in Etsako East local government area of the State.
It was gathered that on the fateful day, one of the IEDs exploded by accident and severed one of the lower limbs of one of the suspected manufacturers, simply identified as Sanusi. He was said to have died of injuries he sustained from the accidental explosion.
The State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Johnson Kokumo, who paraded the suspects before journalists at the State Police Command headquarters in Benin, said the gang leader, named Idris Hasan Abdulmalik, who is of the same parents with the arrested suspect (Idris Ibrahim), is currently on the run.
“The Edo State Police Command in its effort to ensure peace and security in the state, arrested a number of a criminal gang engaged in unwholesome activities of the assemblage of components of Improvised Explosive Device IEDs on 15 January, 2018 in Okugbe area near Iddo Okpilla.
“On the day in question, one of the IEDs in the gang’s arsenal exploded and severed one of the lower limbs of one of its members named Sanusi, other name unknown and died instantly,” Kokumo said.
Narrating his involvement in the crime, Ibrahim said that his brother, Abdulmalik, told him that he was a transporter and that he got to know that he was into bomb making four weeks ago.
“He told me that he was a driver and I usually see him transporting passengers from Okpilla to Abuja.
“He told me that the car he uses belongs to someone else but I just found out from his wife that the car belongs to him. I got to know that he was into bomb making four weeks ago as he does not assemble them at home.
“So when I discovered that he was into bomb making, that was when I decided to look for a place to rent a shop where I can carry out my warding business,” he said.
On her part, Mrs. Zeinab Ibrahim, wife of the fleeing suspect, said when she confronted her husband with the question of who owns the bombs, he told her that they belonged to his friends.
She admitted that her husband had a secret room.
Items recovered from the suspects include one rocket-propelled grenade without the launcher, one beretta pistol (marked 53101466) with seven rounds of 9mm live ammunition, two riot gunners, four smoke pistols, twenty three empty fire extinguishers cylinders.
Others are 18 plastic bottles of prepared borne IEDs, 21 expended smoke cartridges, one pair of scissors, 20 small cans of assorted chemicals, five 500ml bottles of highly inflammable chemicals.