Police arrest man with ammunition to ‘fight IPOB’

Borno State Police Command on Friday arrested a man with large ammunition in Maiduguri.

Clement Asuk, 28, was planning to transport the large consignment of ammunition to Cross River State when he was arrested at the Maiduguri motor park.

According to him, he was sending the ammunition to a community in Cross River State, which he said is currently at war with fighters of the separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

The suspect had with him a heavy suitcase filled with high calibre bullets, including 126 anti-aircraft bullets.

The police said it was the biggest interception of illegal military weapons of ballistic capability ever recorded in the history of the decade-old Boko Haram insurgency.

The suspect confessed that he got the ammunition from his uncle with the help of a soldier.

“There had been continued communal clash between a community in Obubra Local Government Area of Cross River State and a boundary community in Ebonyi State where the IPOB members had continued to kill our people,” he told Premium Times.

“So my uncle called me on the phone to come down to Maiduguri where I will be given ammunition to take back to the community in Cross River to defend our people.

“My uncle and the soldier gave me the ammunition and took me to a motor park in a tricycle before I was arrested by the Police. I was meant to take the ammunition to Makurdi before I will do a waybill to Cross River,” the suspect said.

The police commissioner said while the suspect is being kept in custody, an investigation team has been raised to fish out the soldier and the Chad-based accomplice.