By: Nelson Agbajor
As part of efforts to make the Timber City, Sapele local government area of Delta State a more peaceful and crime free society, Military joint operation has invaded and destroyed some notorious criminal hideouts and other secret places where cult activities are being carried out in Sapele and its environs.
The joint Operations which was carried out by men of the the Nigerian Army, Navy, DSS, Civil Defence Corp and Vigilante groups, saw men and officers of the various formations invading nooks and crannies of Sapele main town and interior settlements to fish out criminals in the area.
Our correspondent gathered that the third day of the joint Operation on Tuesday started with intelligence gathering with the DSS and CJTF on Sunday, followed by subsequent raiding criminals hideout in the area.
The security agencies however arrested five (5) of miscreants while others who were deviant to the warning shots by the soldiers managed to escape, as the soldiers were not out on a mission to ‘aim and kill’.
It was however a different story at Uruakpa by Oluafo Road, where hoodlums who built their hideout inside a thick bush, engaged soldiers in a fierce gun duel in a desperate move to escape.
While three (3) of them were apprehended after being pursued inside the bush, one of them who was hit by a bullet despite warning shots to stop, laid critically unstable as at the time of filling this report.
Items recovered during the raiding including; cut to size locally made guns, bags of indian hemp, cash and charms were being held as exhibits while their makeshifts camps were razed.
The 19 Battalion of the Nigerian Army Koko, that led the Joint Ops, asserted that the operation which was backed by the Army hierarchy and Delta state government, was aimmed at bringing sanity to Sapele by Declearing zero tolerance to all criminals activities in the area.
While calling on the support of Sapele residents in diverging useful information that would aide the ongoing operation to rid Sapele and its environs of violent crime, the 19 Batterlon commended the efforts of men and officers in the operation.
It was garthered that at Ojolu Community in Sapele local government area, an elderly woman who identified herself as Mrs. Julie Onokpite, a trader lauded the pragmatic joint effort of the security men for the initiative adding that the entire area had been under the siege of criminals for a while.