Lethal weapons, including petrol bombs and one double-barrel gun, were recovered during Sunday’s raid of the Afaraukwu, Umuahia’s home of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader Nnamdi Kanu, the police claimed yesterday. IPOB is banned.
Abia State Commissioner of Police Anthony Ogbizi said the items were recovered during a joint operation by security personnel.
He said the petrol bombs were found in buckets.
Also found, according to the police chief, were incriminating documents and letters concerning IPOB’s activities.
He said the raid was carried out after an intelligence report regarding the continued activities of some members of the group.
Ogbizi said: “We recovered many of Biafra’s insignia, staff of office and some of those items are being analysed.”
The police boss said a suspected member of IPOB was being held.
He said the team also discovered the telephone numbers of the group’s zonal coordinators, adding that all the communications between the leadership of the group and their collaborators would be thoroughly analysed.
Ogbizi said a Biafran flag was also found hanging on a telecommunications mast in the area.
According to him, the police will ask the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) to sanction any telecommunication company that allowed its mast to be used to hoist Biafran flags.
He said the activities of IPOB in the Southeast were “stirring insurrection” and that security agencies would not fold their arms and watch the group foment violence.
He said members of the group allegedly set ablaze a police station and a van in Aba. A military patrol team attacked in Umuahia.
Ogbizi said similar joint operations would be carried out intermittently in Kanu’s residence, anytime the police received intelligence reports that offensive weapons were brought to the place.
He said that it was wrong to say that the military was taking over the duties of the police. The action, in his view, should be seen as a synergy between the two organisations to check security challenges.
Ogbizi said that he would not hesitate to invite the army anytime the security situation in the state grew beyond the capacity of the police.
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