General News
UYO – A suspected cultist was burnt alive yesterday by a mob in Uyo, Akwa state capital for alleged involvement in Sunday morning killing of Daniel Okon, a final year Computer Science student of the University of Uyo (UNIUYO).
The suspect who suffered the jungle justice along with three gang members who escaped the lynching were accused as masterminds of the door-to-door robbery on residents in the varsity town of Idak Okpo, Itam, in Itu Local Government Area (LGA) which left the final year student shot dead.
Okon, said to hail from Oron LGA, was spending the weekend with his girlfriend in his 13, Ikpa Lane apartment when the hoodlums invaded the area early Sunday.
His neighbor, Sifon Ekere, narrated, “When the hoodlums shouted on him (the deceased student) to open his door, he refused. I think it was because of his girlfriend who came that Saturday night to spend the night that made him refused to open.
“The criminals broke into his apartment and shot him on the stomach. He struggled and fled into the thick night with the gunshots and collapsed at the back yard. The robbers took his phone as they left the scene.
“The deceased’s landlord, Mr. Archibong Ebong’s apartment and others other tenants were also robbed. Whereabouts of the girlfriend of the deceased arrested by the Police, who responded to distressed calls about two hours late, is yet unknown.
“The life of the final year student could have been saved, but for late arrival of the tricyclist who took the victim first to nearby UNIUYO clinic, where medics rejected him as eventually died of loss of much blood at the referral Anua General Hospital, Nwaniba, Uyothe.”
However, new Commissioner of Police (CP), Akwa Ibom Command, Mr.Waheed Ayilara, has vowed to comb hideouts across the state to fish out all criminal elements and ensure peace in the state.
CP Ayilara prevailed on “All criminals and collaborators in the state to pack your bags and relocate. It is not going to be business as usual. We shall take the battle to your hideouts and deny you freedom of action anywhere in the state.”
Meanwhile, the state Director of of the Department of State Services DSS, Dr. Doyin Adetuberu, says the Command has raided several criminal flashpoints and arrested many suspects soon to face court trial.
Adetuberu while hosting visiting new Executive Council of the Akwa Ibom State Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, in Uyo, alleged the suspects were arrested for crimes including cultism, kidnapping, murder and armed robbery in various locations in the state.
He recalled that since January when he took over the Command, several flashpoints in Uyo, the state capital and other crime prone areas outside the metropolis have been raided, leading to the arrest of the soon to be prosecuted suspects.
VANGUARD
13th February, 2024.
C.E.
Tags: UNIUYO
