Group advocates intelligence-led policing
Policemen attached to the Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) Ikeja have arrested three more suspects over the kidnap of three female students of Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary in Ikorodu, Lagos State, Timilehin Olosa, Tofunmi Popoolaniyan and Deborah Akinayo.
The Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Squad initially arrested three suspected members of the gang behind the kidnap of the school girls, but police sources revealed to The Guardian that three men who allegedly took part in the kidnap were arrested at the weekend in their hotel room where they were hiding, bringing the number of arrested suspects to six.
The police source said: “Three more suspects were arrested at the weekend in their different hotel rooms. We tracked them through the network providers and they have confessed to being the ones cooking for the girls and ensuring that they did not escape. They told us that they fed the girls with Indomie noodles. The suspects also informed us that they had attempted to kidnap the girls two times but they succeeded in their third attempt.”
It would be recalled that the police arrested three suspects, Emmanuel Arigidi, James Henry and one Akanju Oluwasegun when the girls were rescued on March 3. Arigidi, the prime suspect, had revealed that they were 11 in the gang that kidnapped the girls.
However, following the recent orgies of violence that erupted between the Hausas and Yorubas in Agiliti area of Mile 12, which left scores dead and property worth of millions of naira razed down, the Lagos Observer Group, has charged security agencies in the country on the need for a more robust operational intelligence in order to improve the security challenges in the state.
The coordinator, Comrade Moriyole Olukunle, said it is not out of place if a strategic threat assessment systems are intensified to identify major threats and flash points culpable of unleashing terror on Lagosians.
Guardian