An 18-year-old girl, Chinyere Onorfue, was
found in a hotel room in Benin City, capital of Edo state,
dead
Chinyere who allegedly checked into the hotel, with one Emmanuel
Ajayi, on 19 August, was discovered dead in the room at about 8 pm of
the same date, with her throat slashed.
Investigations by operatives of the Edo state police command led to
the arrest of Emmanuel Ajayi and another suspect who were allegedly
found in the hotel room, with the girl’s mobile phone in their
possession. They were paraded before journalists in Benin.
Also paraded by the state commissioner of police, Foluso Adebanjo,
were 20 suspects who allegedly gang raped their victims at different
locations in Benin.
Amongst them were Emmanuel Okoro, Lucky Ighodaro, Moses Israel and
Osakpamwan Ameye, who allegedly dragged their 20-year-old victim (names
withheld) into an uncompleted building at Evboutubu area of Benin at
about 10 pm and gange-raped her.
In yet another incident, Sunday Erico andOsifo Okumabo along with
four others now at large, allegedly forced their 17-year-old victim into
the back of their compound where they serially raped her.
Mr. Adebanjo disclosed to journalists that 44 suspected criminals
were arrested bythe police in the state over alleged involvement in
various criminal activities in the past few weeks, 26 of whom were
paraded.
The police commissioner further disclosed that 10 of the suspects
were already being prosecuted, including one James Farmer who was
alleged to have been part of a gang that kidnapped a politician in the
state along Emaking Junction, Irrua, Edo state where they allegedly
attacked two prison officers and shot one dead while they went away with
their rifle.
He called on residents in the state to be very cautious as the yuletide
draws near and report suspicious persons and activities to the police.
“The war against crime and criminality is being waged relentlessly
here in Edo state and I want to let the members of the public know that
this is the ember months and everybody has to be security conscious.
This is the time criminals want to reap where they did not sow. The
people must be security conscious, they should know their neighbourhood
very well and promptly report suspicious movements.
“We will continue to do our best but we want to cooperation of
members of the pubic because we can’t do it alone, we need the
collaboration of everybody in Edo state to fight crime and criminality
in the state. As you can see, there have not been any case of kidnapping
in the past one week plus, we want to sustain and we can only do with
the cooperation of the members of the public,” Adebanjo said.
He noted that the recent stakeholders meeting the command organised
few days ago was already yielding results as “people are calling us,
giving us information. It is always good to work with the public, the
police is part of the public and the public is part of the police.”
