Ogun State Command of the Nigeria Police Force has said about 39 hoodlums of the 40 suspects paraded yesterday had been confirmed to be members of secret cult groups terrorising the entire state in recent times.
The police said the 40th suspect, who was identified as Ayinde Musibau was a member of an armed robbery syndicate that was arrested following a failed robbery operation at a village in the neighbourhood of Ifo township of Ifo local government area of the state where his gang macheted a commercial motorcyclist before fleeing the area.
Parading the suspects at the command’s headquarters in Eleweran, Abeokuta, the state capital, the commissioner of police, Olanrewaju Oladimeji, said the arrest of the hoodlums was the continuation of the command’s clampdown on cultists, who have been causing mayhem in different parts of the state.
With a specific mentioning of Sagamu township in the Ogun East Senatorial District, Olanrewaju said his command resolved to take the battle against cultism in Ogun to the doorsteps of the “known various cultists that have been unleashing reigns of terror as a result of supremacy battles amongst them.
“Having identified their various hideouts in Sagamu, Odogbolu, Ode-Lemo and some other areas, the anti-cult team in collaboration with other tactical teams and divisional police operatives launched a very serious offensive operation against them and the result is what we are seeing today”.
The police commissioner however, disclosed that not less than 24 suspected secret cult members earlier arrested across the state had been charged to court within the past one week.
While warning parents and guardians to prevail on their wards on the needs to desist from engaging in acts capable of undermining the security of the state, Olanrewaju declared that operatives of his command are determined to rid the state of cultism and other social vices “as an organisation saddled with the responsibility of securing lives and properties”.
