Imo: 400 Hoodlums Arrested, Undergoing Prosecution – Uzodinma; Says They Are Mostly Mercenaries |The Source

By Charles Igbo

Imo State Governor, Senator Hope Uzodinma says the State, under his watch, will be a graveyard for criminals. Innocent persons should entertain no fears at all, as he enjoined them to go about their businesses without any fear.

In an unmistakable stern voice, the Governor said that the serious security breaches which happened in the State a couple of months ago will not repeat.

Imo State, in recent months, was enmeshed in serious security breaches which resulted in violence, destruction and deaths.

In one fell swoop one night, the Headquarters of the Imo State Police Command and  the Owerri Correctional Centre were attacked. During the attack, 1,844 prisoners at the Correctional Centre, most of them hardened criminals – murderers, kidnappers, armed robbers – were released by the hoodlums, while a number of detainees were also released from the Criminal Investigation Department of the Police.

Till date, only a few of them have either come back on their own, or re-arrested even from as far away as Ghana.

During the attacks, office blocks were also torched, as well as 50 vehicles packed within the Imo Police Command Headquarters, including operational vehicles.

The deadly attacks of that night have since been followed by other attacks on Police Divisions and Stations, resulting in the killings of Policemen, torching of Police facilities and the release of detainees.

One of the most daring was a morning attack on the country home of the Governor, at his Omuma Community. During the attack, a Security officer was killed,  a part of a building torched, as was the Governor’s long owned Rolls Royce.

But speaking on Sunday, May 23, after a Church Service at the Government House Chapel, Owerri, the Governor revealed that 400 of those responsible for the mayhem in Imo have been arrested. And, already undergoing trial in the Courts, he added. He also revealed that most of them were non-Igbo, but mercenaries imported into the State to inflict pains on the people, and destabilise the Government.

The Governor did not, however, disclose those responsible for the importation of such mercinaries. However, not a few people agree that the Imo attacks were politically motivated.

Assuring “never again”, Uzodinma warned all those with such criminal intents to keep off the State as nothing would be spared to deal with them ruthlessly.