Troops arrest telecom engineer, other for making weapons

Troops of Operation Whirl Stroke (OPWS) in Benue State on Monday paraded a telecommunications engineer and one other person for their alleged involvement in the manufacturing of illegal weapons around the border community of Benue and Taraba states. The Force Commander of OPWS, Major General Adeyemi Yekini, told newsmen while parading the suspects at the […]

Troops of Operation Whirl Stroke (OPWS) in Benue State on Monday paraded a telecommunications engineer and one other person for their alleged involvement in the manufacturing of illegal weapons around the border community of Benue and Taraba states.

The Force Commander of OPWS, Major General Adeyemi Yekini, told newsmen while parading the suspects at the operations headquarters in NAF Tactical Command, Makurdi that the troops received information about the weapon manufacturers five weeks ago.

Yekini said after four weeks of intensive surveillance of the particular area in Aniyin in Logo Local Government Area of Benue State, his men were able to identify the suspects and passed information to the troops of OPWS, Sector 2 led by Captain Samuel Okenarghe, who arrested two of the suspected arms makers.

Yekini added that the suspects were cooperating with OPWS, emphasising that they already have a long list of their (suspects) customers who are spread across Benue and Taraba states.

Okenarghe told journalists that the two suspects, including the engineer, were arrested on March 24 in Anyin with an AK 47 rifle and that subsequently the troops recovered other manufacturing items as well as several arms in different stages of completion from the alleged illegal weapons factory.

The suspects: Engr. Cephas Ati and Mzunga Tseyina in an interview explained their roles in the alleged weapons manufacturing for which they were arrested.

Ati who spoke on behalf of his partner, narrated that he got involved in the illegal business two years ago after his return from Europe when his fortunes nose-dived occasioned by alleged witchcraft activities.

“I had difficulties starting life all over again from scratch. Since I had ideas of arms manufacturing, having learnt it for five years in Mauritania, I decided to get involved in the business to raise money that would enable me go back to Europe,” he said.

The suspect, who said he is a qualified telecommunication engineer, explained that he lives in Wukari, Taraba State (a border town of Anyin in Benue’s Logo) but had on the day of his arrest visited his Anyin village on a dual mission; to deliver a simple rifle which a friend ordered for self defence and to check his farm.

Ati added that on the way to deliver the weapon, he called Tseyina to convey him to the location, stressing that, that was the only involvement of his partner. He also denied owning any arms workshop in the area.

He said the military apprehended him at his farm the following day while his five brothers contended with him over his farmland and further alerted the troops that they were being threatened by their brother with an AK47 rifle.

The suspect confessed to have engaged the owner of the workshop, one Tarveshima Uvande in Ukum LGA severally in the past two years to manufacture different rifles for him out of which he had sold at least 16 to his customers for between N300,000 and N350,000 each rifle while pistols sold for N50,000.