The Abia State Police Command has recovered a stolen Toyota Sequioa marked, SMK 766 DE, with the campaign posters of a candidate for the House of Representatives.
The police said the car snatchers, who were still at large, apparently pasted the posters on the vehicle to beat security.
Commissioner of Police, Adamu Ibrahim, who also paraded some suspected criminals in Umuahia, said, “The jeep was recovered from a hotel at Uzuakoli. Efforts are on to contact the owner of the jeep. Apparently the posters are meant to beat the police checkpoints.”
He explained that two suspected robbers had led a team of police detectives to the hotel in pursuit of some fleeing members of their gang.
He added that the hoodlums, numbering about five, on sighting the police engaged them in a gun duel.
He said one of the criminals, identified simply as Ifeanyi, was arrested with bullet wound, but later died on the way to the hospital.
The police said efforts were being intensified to track down other fleeing members of the gang.
Paraded also were two suspected armed men who attacked a House of Assembly candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, and ex- Super Eagles star, Chief Karibe Ojigwe.
Ojigwe was attacked by the suspects while driving to his home at World Bank Housing Estate in Umuahia and dispossessed of his Mitsubishi L400 .
The vehicle was later recovered at Bende by the police who also arrested two suspects, Uchenna Ibero and Ifeanyi Agbai, in connection with the incident.
The CP said, “A thorough search of the house of one of the suspects, Agbai, led to the recovery of one AK-47, a magazine containing three rounds of live ammunition, a locally-made revolver pistol and one black polo with the inscription ‘GALANT MOPOL’.”
Also arrested was one Chibueze Onuegbu for allegedly concealing in his compound three suspected stolen vehicles.
The police said when the suspect’s compound was raided following a tip-off, one Space Star Wagon with registration number, NCH 405 AE; one Toyota Picnic, KPA 177 LG; and a Lexus, PH 30 AM, were recovered.
The police said the suspect allegedly confessed that the vehicles were snatched from their owners by his gang at gunpoint on January 29 during a robbery operation at Nunya junction of the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway.
