The Ondo State Security Network Agency, commonly known as Amotekun, has arrested no fewer than 36 people for allegedly engaging in illegal activity in various areas of the state.
The state commander of the corps, Akogun Adetunji Adeleye, paraded the suspects in Akure, the state capital, on Wednesday. He stated that while some of the individuals were particularly detained for suspected kidnapping activities, others were accused of stealing, burglary, and murder.
According to him, the 19 suspected kidnappers were picked from the northern senatorial district of the state and “you will notice that you always find members of the Amotekun Corps in each junction and every major street. This is to prevent such actions of kidnappers entering houses to pick people.”
Adeleye said, “Today again, we are parading about 36 suspects. I want to place it on record that in the last one month, there were three kidnapped activities that we were able to file successfully. This means that in the last one month, there has been no successful kidnapping activity in the state.
“Today, a cross-section of these criminals is a little bit different from what we normally have where we parade 20 people and 15 of them are kidnap suspects. Today, most of what we have are house breaking and stealing. We remain resolute in our determination to flush them out of our society.
“Across the board, we were able to note the connection of some people that are suspected to be kidnappers and robbers that we were able to find due to our intelligence report. We picked about 17 of them in a particular area in the state where we monitored.
“We equally have a suspected murderer and have about eight cases of house breaking and shops breaking, ” he said
The commander noted that the arrest was made possible as a result of the efforts of the other security agencies in the state.
“I must say that with the cooperation of other state security agencies, we have been able to reduce the criminal activities in the state. A cross-section of these 36 suspects shows that their activities have dropped drastically in the state. We will still continue to ensure that people do their business normally and that they are not disturbed now that the state government is resolute in guaranteeing lives and property. We are also determined to ensure that,” he stressed.
He, however, appealed to the traditional rulers in the state to give the corps any useful information that can assist them to flush the criminals out of the state.
“We want to appeal to the Olus, that once they see the connection of unknown people in the forest, they should alert us immediately. I want to encourage the general public that once they see strange movement, they should let the security agencies know,” he urged.
