Edo Police Arrest Five Suspected Cultists, Recover Gun In Fresh Crackdown

by MIKE OSAROGIAGBON

The Edo State Police Command has arrested five suspected cultists and recovered a firearm in two separate operations targeting criminal hideouts across the state.

The arrests came amid a renewed push against cult-related violence, following Governor Monday Okpebholo’s October 12 warning that unrepentant cultists would face the full force of the law.

Briefing journalists in his office on Wednesday, October 21, the Commissioner of Police, CP Patrick Daaor, said the arrests were made on October 2 and 17 following intelligence reports.

The operations took place before and after the governor’s warning at a mass cultism renunciation ceremony organised by the state government in Benin City.

CP Daaor said in the October 17 operation, operatives of the Command’s Violent Crime Response Unit (VCRU) arrested four suspected cultists along Upper Siluko Road, Benin City.

The suspects were identified as Kevwe Kokori, 30, Omoregbe Iguma, 38, Gabriel Kokori, 32, and Emmanuel Friday, 39.

The police Chief in Edo added that the operation followed intelligence that some suspected cultists were planning to initiate new members into their group.

He stated further that one of the suspects, Kevwe Kokori, who claimed to be a member of a vigilante group, was initially intercepted and released.

However, he was alleged to have returned shortly afterwards with about 20 young men on motorcycles, armed with dangerous weapons, in an attempt to attack the operatives.

CP Daaor said the confrontation left a police vehicle’s windscreen damaged, but the operatives overpowered the group and arrested four suspects while others fled.

He said the four suspects confessed during interrogation to being members of the Eiye Secret Cult Confraternity as efforts are ongoing to apprehend the fleeing suspects.

CP Patrick Daaor also said that in a separate operation on October 2, VCRU operatives arrested another suspected cultist, Chidiebere Osazee, at an uncompleted building near AY Junction in Ulegun Community, off the Benin-Abraka Road recovering a cut-to-size single-barrel gun during the crackdown.

He stated that Chidiebere Osazee confessed to being a member of the Eiye Secret Cult Confraternity and claimed ownership of the recovered firearm as efforts were ongoing to track down other suspected members of the group.