No fewer than 19 suspected kidnappers have been apprehended by the Ondo State security outfit, codenamed Amotekun.
Addressing newsmen in Akure, the state capital, Amotekun State Commander, Akogun Adetunji Adeleye, said that the suspects were arrested in the hotspots of the northern senatorial district of the state.
Adeleye revealed that the suspected kidnappers were arrested following a tip-off, and they were found in possession of firearms, cutlasses, and other dangerous weapons.
While parading the suspects and other criminals, Adeleye further disclosed, “The cross-section of the 19 suspected kidnappers were picked from the Northern senatorial district of the state, and you will notice that you always find members of the Amotekun Corps at every junction and major street. This is to prevent actions of kidnappers entering houses to abduct people, and that’s why we are calling on the general public to beware of strangers.”
The Amotekun boss added, “Today again, we are parading about 36 suspects. I want to place it on record that in the last month, there were three kidnapping activities that we were able to foil successfully.
“This means in the last month, there have been no successful kidnapping activities in the state.
“Today, the cross-section of these criminals is a little different from what we normally have, where we parade 20 people and 15 of them are kidnapping suspects. Today, we have more cases of housebreaking and stealing. We remain resolute in our determination to flush them out of our society.
“Across the board, we were able to uncover the connection of some people suspected to be kidnappers and robbers due to our intelligence report. We picked about 17 of them in a particular area in the state where we monitored.
“We equally have a suspected murderer, we have about 8 cases of housebreaking and shops breaking. But I must say that with the cooperation of other state security agencies, we have been able to reduce criminal activities in the state.
“The cross-section of these 36 suspects shows that their activities have dropped drastically in the state. We will continue to ensure that people do their businesses normally and that they are not disturbed. Now that the state government is resolute in guaranteeing lives and property, we are also determined to ensure that.”
Regarding the activities of scavengers in the state, Adeleye said, “they are already a problem because a couple of days ago, we paraded one man that kidnapped an 8-year-old girl, put her in a sack bag, and this is what has been happening all over the state.
“So we are working with the relevant government agencies to come up with a policy to ban the further activities of these scavengers within the state.”
Adeleye, however, appealed to traditional rulers, the Olus, and other members of the public to always alert the Corps immediately if they saw or noticed strange movements in their areas.
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