Photo: Edo State CP Parades Bomb Producers

Edo State Commissioner of Police, CP Johnson Kokumo today, paraded three persons, a boy and two girls suspected to be connected with the explosion that occurred in Okpilla, Etsako East Local Government Area of Edo State, on Monday evening.

The police commissioner, who gave the names of those arrested as Idris Ibrahim, 22, and two females, Zainab Ibrahim and Oyeza Abdul all of Kogi State told journalists that the suspects specialized in manufacturing bombs, adding that the police recovered some Improvised Explosive Devices, IEDs, from them.

Parading the suspects at the state police command in Benin City, Kokumo said one of the IEDs exploded and severed the lower limbs of one of the suspects, simply identified as Sanusi who later died as a result of the injuries he sustained during the explosion, pointing out that the death of Sanusi caused panic and pandemonium in the entire Okpella community.

According to him, “the Edo State Police Command in its effort to ensure peace and security in the state, arrested a number of criminal gangs engaged in unwholesome activities of the assemblage of components of Improvised Explosive Device IEDs on 15th of January, 2018 in Okugbe area near Iddo quarters in 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 and died instantly,” he said.

CP Kokumo said the gang leader, Idris Hassa Abdulmalik an indigene of Kogi State is on the run while other gang member, Idris Ibrahim, 22, and two females, Zainab Ibrahim and Oyeza Abdul all of Kogi State were arrested.

One of the suspects paraded by the Police, Idris Ibrahim while narrating his involvement in the crime said, Idris Hassa 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 belonged 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 welding business because I am a welder,” he said.

Mrs. Oyeza Abdul, whose husband is still at large, said when she confronted her husband with the question of who owns the bombs; she said he told her that they belonged to his friends and admitted that her husband had a secret room.

Items recovered from the suspects included one rocket of propelled, grenade without the launcher, one Berretta pistol No.53101466 with seven rounds of 9mm live ammunition, two riot gunners, four smoke pistols, twenty three empty fire extinguishers cylinders.

Others are eighteen plastic bottles of prepared borne IEDs, 21 expended smoke cartridges, one pair of scissors, twenty small cans of assorted chemicals, five 500ml bottles of highly inflammable chemicals and others.