by Abdullahi Garba, PremiumTimes
The suspected leader of a gang that that allegedly kidnapped and killed an army colonel in March, has narrated how the operation was carried out in Kaduna.
Mr. Okeke and other members of the group were paraded by the police before the media on Thursday.Police say Emeka Okeke is the leader of a four-man gang that abducted and killed Colonel Ismaila Inusa on March 26.
He said their target was the army officer’s car, and that they sold it for N800, 000.
Mr. Okeke said, “One Sunday evening, we were on patrol for an opportunity target of any motor we see to snatch.
“It was in the process that we saw Colonel Inusa’s motor from Police College and followed him down to Refinery Junction where we snatched the car. Immediately, we handed over the car to Dan-Sokoto and he took it away.”
He said the colonel was thereafter taken to Abuja Road bye-pass and was asked to lie down and “relax his mind”.
“We are only interested in the car, not his life. I told him, you are bigger than this car, and if you live
you will buy another car,” Mr. Okeke said.
“Shortly after then, he said he wanted to drink water. So I went to the car to bring pure water for him and as I bent down to give him water, he snatched the gun from me and quickly removed the magazine.”
“Unknown to him, one bullet was already in the magazine. So, he was holding the gun and I was holding the mouth. We were dragging possession of the gun. At a point, the gun nozzle was facing me and he attempted to pull the trigger, but he could not do that.
“I succeeded in turning the gun to his direction and he pulled the trigger and fired and killed himself. He nearly killed me,” Mr. Okeke said.
When asked about the whereabout of the other members of his gang members at the time he was struggling with the Colonel, the 44-year-old Mr. Okeke said, “They all ran away”.
“We are not assassins, we didn’t know he was even a military officer. It was like a week after we killed the Colonel that we started reading on the pages of newspapers and on social media that the man we killed was a senior military officer,” he said.
He said himself and his group specialized in car snatching and that the Colonel’s Mercedes Benz car was sold for N800, 000.
The Kaduna State Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Adamu, gave the names of the other members of the gang as Ebele Precious, 41; Chijioke Ugwanyi a.k.a. CJ, 42; and Ibrahim Kabiru, a.k.a. Ustaza, 23.
The commissioner also said that one AK 47 rifle, one pump action gun, four pistols and ammunitions were recovered from the suspects.
