The Commander of OPWS, Major General Adeyemi Yekini while parading the suspects and weapons recovered, explained that the arrest was recorded through the help of local intelligence gathering.
“About five weeks ago, the headquarters of Operation Whirl Stroke got information from our local sources about activities of some weapon manufacturers operating in Ayiin in Logo and Ukum local governments and we passed it to Sector 2 Commander of OPWS who is in charge of Logo and Ukum to work on the information so that we will know who these people are, where they are, and how we can apprehend them,” he said.
According to Yekini, after about four weeks of keeping surveillance, they were able to identify the culprits, their location and their subsequent arrest.
Confirming the arrest, the Sector 2 Commander, in charge of Ukum and Logo, Captain Samuel Okenarhe disclosed that on the 24th of March, 2019, he got information of some local weapon manufacturing factory in Logo and Ukum axis where the troops immediately swung into action that led to the arrest of two suspects and recovery of weapons that are at various stages of manufacturing.
In an interview with the one of the suspects, Cephas Ati who confessed to being a gun manufacturer, said he has been in the business since two years ago and have manufactured and supplied 16 different kinds of gun ranging from Pistol to AK47.
According to him it takes one month to manufacture a good AK47 while a pistol take only three days, adding that the cost also varies according to their grades.
A good pistol is sold at N50,000 while a good AK47 goes for N320,000 to 350,000 respectively.
Ati who explained that he is a Telecommunications engineer said while he was abroad he spent five years in Mauritania to learn gun manufacturing and back home, when life became unbearable and he lost all he had, he remembered that he learned gun manufacturing and started the business.
“Even though I don’t have the manufacturing equipment myself, I used to go to one Tarvershima Ivande now at large, who owns the factory to help in manufacturing the weapons. Because we are living in the crises zone, my childhood friend asked me to produce one AK47 riffle for him for self defence and in the process I came to Ayiin to deliver it and on reaching where I farm, we engaged in a dispute with my kinsmen and they invited the army, and that was how I was arrested and one AK47 was recovered from me,” he said.
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