Youths ‘Seize’ NDLEA Officials Gun, Free Suspects

The leadership of Oruma community in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State have been given seven days by the state Command of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency to produce a pistol reportedly collected some youths in the community.

The gun which belong to NDLEA and loaded with 15 rounds of live ammunition was seized when the youth allegedly attacked some operatives on an operation in the community to arrest suspected drug peddlers.

The operatives were reportedly ambushed on Wednesday after arresting two suspected drug dealers in the community.

Four officers were critically injured, the suspects were freed, and operational vehicles of the command were destroyed.

In a statement on Thursday, NDLEA spokesman in the state, SN Daniel Howells Obah, said the agency’s commander in Bayelsa, Mr Kanu Chukwuemeka, had given a seven-day ultimatum for the community to produce the gun.

He said: “The irate indigenes of Oruma community blocked the bridge to the community, overpowered the advance team of officers, collected a pistol loaded with rounds of 9mm live ammunition, freed the two suspects and seized the exhibits recovered and equally vandalized the Restoration Taxi with Reg. No: BYS 060 TR, given to the command by the Bayelsa State Government.

“They shot and stabbed the NDLEA officers. It was when they sighted the NDLEA backup tactical team that they started running away, and that saved what could have been more fatal.

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“The state commander wishes to reiterate here that the NDLEA is not at war with any individual or community and can not send out its officers to men to cause chaos or pandemonium in any area. He, therefore, calls on all well-meaning individuals in society to join hands with the NDLEA to stop the scourge of drug abuse/addiction in our communities and cities and equally bring the merchants of death and criminality (the drug dealers) to book.

“The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) is an elite security agency who is not only ethical, but very professional in its operations based on the Rules of Engagement guiding paramilitary operations in all situations, including this. It is foolhardy to believe that NDLEA officers will just storm a community and start shooting sporadically.

“The State Commander NDLEA Bayelsa State, Kanu S. Chukwuemeka, CN, is using this opportunity to call on the paramount ruler and the entire leadership of the community to produce within seven days the pistol loaded with 15 rounds of 9mm live ammunition they collected from the officers, the two male suspects arrested and the exhibits recovered from them or be ready to contend with the law.

“The Command equally wishes to place it on record that Sokoh ‘m’, who also sustained injuries and rushed to the same hospital where the NDLEA officers are being treated, is also being well attended to, but he’s placed under arrest alongside his co-assailants, Daniel Sokoh and Samson Sokoh.”