Police catch jailbreak suspects
Okechukwu Edison, 42, and Sunday Morison have been detained by skilled agents of the Nigeria Police Force Intelligence Response Team (IRT) for the alleged abduction and violent robbery of a female attorney in Port Harcourt, the state capital of Rivers.
Detectives’ initial inquiries indicated that the two suspects, who are natives of Rumuji in the Emohua Local Council of Rivers State, had a history of kidnapping, armed robbery, and vehicle snatching.
The suspects were captured by Crack detectives from the Force Intelligence Bureau Intelligence Response Team (FIB-IRT) on November 10, 2022 at Rumuola intersection in Rivers State after successfully orchestrating the abduction of a female lawyer in the city.
The two suspects had previously spent 11 years in the Nigeria Correctional Service in Imo State as detainees awaiting trial for abduction. They were also involved in the kidnapping together with two other criminal gang members.
In their confession to the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) headed by DCP Olatunji Disu, the suspects admitted that “we left the correctional facility on Monday, April 5, 2022 during the attack on the prison by a group of unknown gunmen who threw dynamites at the walls of the prison and ordered inmates to flee.”
After military raided and destroyed the oil bunkering site where we were earning a livelihood after our jailbreak freedom, we turned to abduction, robbery, and vehicle theft as we lost everything that was supporting our family.
The suspects were subsequently detained by police for allegedly kidnapping a female lawyer in Port Harcourt, along with another gang member who is also an ex-convict from the same prison facility.
They were captured when IRT operatives learned of the three-day captivity of a female lawyer who had been kidnapped. Police officials instructed their agents to start a quick search and rescue effort for the attorney.
After the suspected criminals were captured, the lawyer was freed, and she named two of the suspects as the individuals responsible for her kidnapping and the theft of N5 million from her bank account.
The gang leader, Okechukwu Edison, described his time in jail and said that he was there as a result of lending a vehicle to a roommate called Emmanuel who was subsequently detained and accused of abduction.
Prior to the jailbreak, he had spent eleven years in Imo State Prison as a detainee awaiting trial, and he said that the assailants of the prison had broken in and told the prisoners to go.
Regarding the abduction, he said that they had seen the victim exiting a store along Igwuruta Road and had taken her. They had then phoned one Chukwuemeka Onu, 25, “m” from his village to make arrangements for the victim’s safe custody in an unfinished structure.
According to Onu’s testimony, he escorted Okechukwu, the gang leader, to Eneke, a semi-urban neighborhood in the city, without realizing he was accompanied by an abducted lady, to make arrangements for where to hide his bunkering equipment.
One of the suspects also acknowledged that he had spent 14 years in the Imo State prison previous to the breakout and that his case of armed robbery had been transferred to a different judge during that time.
The IRT team is still investigating their participation in other illegal operations in the state and working to capture other gang members.
Usman Alkali Baba, the Inspector-General of Police, had already ordered that all suspects be brought to justice as quickly as feasible via the Force Public Relations Officer, Olumuyiwa Adejobi.
