Three soldiers and 22 others, mostly undergraduates were arrested by security
operatives in Maiduguri, Borno State in
the ongoing clampdown on alleged cultists group in the troubled state.
Parading the suspects the Borno State Police Commissioner, Mohammed Aliyu said
they belong to a group, Neo Black Movement (NBM), which has members cutting
across students of higher institutions in Maiduguri, business community and
personnel of the Nigerian Army.
The Borno Commissioner of Police, Mohammed Aliyu, said the group were caught
at about 2a.m. in a hotel built at a deserted area of Maiduguri during an
initiation process.
Aliyu, who was flanked at the briefing by both the heads of Department of
State Services (DSS) and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps in the state,
said: “The strategies put in place have again yielded results as 25 members of
Neo Black Movement (NBM) were arrested for criminal conspiracy, unlawful
assembly, cultism and armed robbery.”
The CP said some of the things they were caught with include: 16 assorted
phones of different make, three calabashes containing reasonable quantity of
red liquid suspected to be human blood, one live 7.62mm ammunition, among other
things.
Meanwhile, some of the arrested suspects who spoke to journalists, insisted
that they were not cultists and that the substance in the calabashes were local
drinks with some alcohol to make them high.
Handing over the soldiers caught in the clampdown, the head of military
counter-insurgency in the North East (Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya
Dole), Maj. Gen. Olusegun Adeniyi said the three soldiers, Lance Corporals
Augustine Aronlo, David Emmanuel and Private Onu Chidubem, have been tried and dismissed from the Army.
He however warned that the suspects should not be dismissed as cultists as
facts pointed to the fact that they are armed robbers and kidnappers.
