Police Arrest 11 Suspected Armed Cultists In Anambra

No fewer than eleven members of a suspected cult group allegedly terrorizing the people of the Ihembosi community in Ekwusigo local government area of Anambra State have been arrested by the police.

The suspects were rounded up by operatives of Zone 13, Zonal Police Headquarters, Ukpo, for allegedly invading the premises of a hotel, Las Vegas, at Ubahu village in the area.

Twelve of the suspected members of the secret group are currently on the run, with the police operatives still trailing after them.

A source told Leadership, under anonymity, that their arrests followed a strongly worded petition to the Assistant Inspector-General of Police, AIG in-charge of Zone 13, Godwin Aghaulor.

The Proprietor of the Hotel, Chief Omenife Emeka Onwuatu, had through his legal counsel, PJN Azubuike, petitioned the AIG, seeking his intervention to curb the menace of the cultist group who he said invaded his hotel on March 10 with about 12 motorcycles, charms, cudgels, cutlasses, axes, and other dangerous weapons and terrorising the owners, management, and staff of the hotel including a threat to kill anyone at sight.

Onwuatu, the chairman of Ubahu village and Israel-based businessman, had earlier warned the group to stop performing rituals at the stream in the area and to relocate their shrine to another base, but said that his warning did not go down well with the suspects, whom he identified as idol worshippers who earn their living through rituals.

In the petition dated April 16, 2024 and entitled: “threat to life, cultism, terrorism, ritualism, threat of arson, conspiracy, forcible entry, trial by ordeal, assault, malicious damage and conduct likely to cause breach of peace by the suspected cultists headed by one Okechukwu Agwuncha”, the hotel proprietor lamented that during the invasion, the suspects forced open the hotel gate and deposited charms at the entrance and premises of his hotel.

According to the petitioner, “they chanted war songs, threatened to burn down the hotel and its premises, performed so many incantations and rituals in front of the hotel and its premises and passed death sentences on the owners and occupants of our client and thereafter escaped.

He continued, “Before the invasion, the suspects had earlier in the day unlawfully assembled themselves in various locations in the town where they organised and planned the invasion, assembled their weapons, demonstrated their charms, chanted war songs and passed death sentences on the leadership of the community before setting out to invade the hotel premises which they variously threatened to burn down”.

To make matters worse, the petitioner further disclosed, that the suspects captured their atrocities on video and uploaded into the internet to display their impunity and intimidation the operators and customers of the hotel but putting extreme fear in them to force them to abandon the premises or come and negotiate with them.

“The negative effect of this is that the Managing Director of the hotel, other Directors, Managers and staff, as well as the customers were thrown into extreme fear for their dear lives. While the customers of the hotel at the time of the incident hurriedly checked out, others who heard or saw the incident completely avoided the hotel and cancelled their bookings and the goodwill of the hotel proprietor and his fortune were maliciously destroyed and damaged,” the petitioner stated.

Describing the act as an unlawful assembly for unlawful purpose of invading private premises to intimidate and terrorize people therein, the petitioner therefore requested the AIG to use his good offices to apprehend all members of the gang and recover their tools and implements to bring them to book and nip in the bud, their plans to kill the hotel operators and leaders of the community and burn down the premises of the hotel.

Confirming the arrests, the AIG, Aghaulor told newsmen in his office that the police would carry out discreet investigations into the matter to ascertain the motives behind the action, while stating that manhunt had been launched to apprehend the fleeing gangsters.

When the suspects were arrested, pleas by their counsel, Ibuchi Ewuzue Esq, for the police to release them on bail was declined as the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the Zonal Criminal Investigations Department, DC-ZCID ordered their continued detention until after investigations.

The suspects were however on Tuesday released on bail by the police after the intervention of the President General of Ihembosi Town Union, Professor Christopher Ihueze following a written undertaking to the AIG to resolve the matter amicably and pleaded for time to do that.

Prof Ihuezel, after saying that he would be burying his stepmother on Saturday was given three weeks to resolve the matter or return the bailed suspects and the others on the run for arraignment in court.