The Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Lagos State Police Command have arrested 3 men from Benue State who make guns and allegedly supply weapons to robbery gangs and members of cults in the state.
The suspects,Shapraku Umade 19, Moses Anzur 19, and JanesTsebe 20, were arrested at a hotel in Lekki while waiting to handover some weapons to a robbery suspect on the Command’s wanted list.
On interogation,one of the suspects,Umade, revealed that he was a blacksmith and had manufactured the weapons.
Umade said he learnt the art from his father who died when he was in High school 3
According to him his late father could make single- barrel rifles and he (Umade) left school to pick up where his father stopped.
He said he took the business to higher level through books on how to make guns such as AK 47s SNGs, revolvers and even pump guns but said he buys the metal from scavengers to make the rifles.
The suspect revealed that he isn’t the only one who makes guns in his home town.” Our traditional heads gave us strict warnings not to sell them to strangers..We only use them to defend ourselves from the shepherds who invade our community.”
” In such attacks, the community would donate money to buy the materials to make single-barrel rifles for our defence.”
He said a man named Maiyaki came to the village to buy four guns from him for N30.000 with the promise of sending him the money ” I had to come to Lagos in search of him because i needed money to prepare my second son who is on his way.”
” Mayaki put us in a hotel and still and still asked me to be patient while he got the money to pay for it.Later he bought two of the rifles through one of my brothers (one of the suspects). We were at the hotel when the police came to arrest us.”
Another suspect,Tsebe said his job was to find buyers for the two guns returned by Mayaki, while the third suspect,Anzuur said he only accompanied Umade to Lagos and that he was in the hotel to pick up the N20.000 he had given Umade as transport to Lagos
The suspects were taken to the state police Commissioner,Hakeem Odumosu along with others who committed various crimes.
Odumosu said the command received information from a very reliable source that some arns dealers based in the Adipo area of Benue State brought weapons and ammunition to the Ajah area of Lagos to sell to some armed robbers and cult members.
” According to this information,SARS were mobilised to Ajah to closely monitor the area.The exercise paid off,as three of the armed dealers were arrested .It turned out that the suspects often sell weapons to their collaborators in Lagos.They have been in the illegal business for two years” he said
The police Commissioner said “Investigation is ongoing and the suspects will be tried in Court as soon as the investigation is over.’
