18 persons have been arrested by the Ondo State Security Network Agency also known as Amotekun, in a bus conveying weapons in Ondo town.
The Amotekun corps said the bus was loaded with 500 pieces of weapons such as guns, knives, carriages and swords. The items were reportedly concealed inside a sack and were being kept under the seat of one of the buses.
Parading the suspects on Friday at the headquarters of the command in Akure, the state capital, the state Commander of Amotekun, Chief Adetunji Adeleye, said three buses escaped from different checkpoints in the state but one of them was arrested in Ondo town.
He said, “We got information that a group of men are coming to invade the state, so we set out our monitoring devices and precisely at 1:30am on Thursday, we saw three buses that we had actually been trailing till they entered the state.
“They had a brief stop just before they entered the town and when our men tried to stop them, the three buses escaped. 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 including the police and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.
“The buses attempted to overrun the security agents and sped off. The speed was so much that they hit the barricades on the road. We discovered that it was difficult pursuing them and didn’t want to cause any accident. So we radioed our station on Owena and the security men there blocked the road.
“On getting there, they were able to escape by hitting the barricades again. We continued pursuing them while we called the Ile-Oluji junction, saying that they should block the road properly but the suspects also escaped. We now had a complete blockade before the Akure garage in Ondo town and we were able to apprehend them.”
The bus driver reportedly said he was asked to bring the bag to Akure from Kaduna State, claiming that he did not know it contained weapons.
The commander added, “One would think the bag was filled with ‘tiger nuts’ drinks. On opening the bags we found some guns, rounds of ammunition and under the seat, we found about different types and sizes of dagger and poisonous jack knives cleverly concealed under the seats.
“When we asked them what they intended to do with them, they told us that they were just given instructions to go to Akure and that further instructions would be given to them.”
Adeleye stated that the suspects would be prosecuted after investigations had been concluded.
