*OC
marine detained
Worried by the growing attacks on banks and
determined to forestall further occurrences, the Inspector General of Police,
Solomon Arase and the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Kayode Aderanti
have teamed up and handed over four machine guns to operatives of the Special
Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Ikeja.
This was even as fact emerged that the officer in
charge of marine, a Chief Superintendent of Police, had been arrested and
detained on the orders of Arase. It was gathered that the OC Marine was nowhere
to be found after the robber unleashed hell at Ogolonto and escaped through the
waterways.
Ironically, the machine guns are not from the
stables of the Nigerian Police Force or supplied by the Federal Government as
it’s supposed to be. Rather the machine guns are from cache of sophisticated
guns recovered from past robbery suspects.
A senior police officer said that would be first
time that SARS detectives are given machines guns in the history of the NPF.
Arase and Aderanti brainstormed and arrived at this
drastic decision after last week Wednesday bank robbery carried out on four
banks at the Ogolonto area of Ikorodu, Lagos.
Before the Ogolonto robberies, the same gang had
robbed banks at Lekki and Ijede in Ikorodu. In the Lekki robbery, they mowed
down three policemen and a girl hawking fish.
Arase and Aderanti’s decision was further hinged on the
fact that most of the SARS operatives sent to confront these bank robberies,
were actually being sent to a suicide mission. The anti-robbery detectives were
armed with AK47 rifles, while the bank robbers were armed with hand grenade,
explosives and machine guns.
A police source said: “SARS had never used machines
guns before. Usually, it’s Marine Police that are given machine guns. They
mount such guns on their boats. But on the day the bank robbers struck at Ogolonto,
the Marine Police were called repeatedly by the Lagos CP, but he got no
response. The OC Marine was nowhere to be found. The CP wanted them to use
their boats to block waterways and possibly chase the bandits. On the fateful
day of the robbery, policemen attached to the Rapid Response Squad (RRS), raced
to the scene in their Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC), but many of them ran
away when they saw the superior firearms of the bank robbers.”
Information further gathered is that two of the
machine guns had been deployed to Ikorodu and mounted at strategic points. Over
15 plain cloth policemen led an experienced Assistant Superintendent of Police
(ASP) are always patrolling the waterways.
The ASP and his men had been ordered to be there for
a month and after that, another batch would relieve them, thus the circle would
continue. Aderanti has taken it upon himself to provide feeding for the
policemen drafted to the area.
The two remaining machines are at a standby in case of
any alert.
This was even as dozens of policemen had been
deployed by Aderanti to follow the trail of the robbers before it goes cold.
A source said that the trail has so far taken the
policemen to the south west part of the country.
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