Traders protest plan to transfer Boko Haram prisoners to Anambra

Thousands of traders at the various markets in Awka, Anambra State capital, yesterday closed shops and staged protests across the major streets in the capital city over the alleged plan by the Federal Government to transfer Boko Haram prisoners to the prisons in Anambra. During the protest which started in the morning after the Saturday sanitation exercise, the traders of which included market women who carried placards marched through the Arthur Eze Avenue and down to the ever busy Regina Caeli Junction of the Awka to Onitsha Expressway, which was barricaded as they chanted solidarity songs and voiced their rejection of the alleged move by the federal government to move Boko Haram prisoners to Anambra. The traders who were led by the President of Awka Traders Association, Emeka Jude Agumadu, insisted that President Muhammadu Buhari jail the Boko Haram prisoners to the North, where they rightly belong. And as the protesters continued in their action, they created heavy traffic jam that lasted for several hours, before security agents stormed the Regina Caeli junction of the Awka to Onitsha Express Way Expressway, branshing guns and tear gar canisters apparently to frighten the protesters, who remained defiant until their leader directed them to clear from the Expressway and move towards the old Awka to Enugu road (Nnamdi Azikiwe Avenue) where the protest would continue. The protesters displayed anti Buhari placards bearing the inscriptions like, “Buhari, Anambra is not Borno State”, "Bring federal investment to Anambra State not Boko Haram", “We don't want Boko Haram prisoners in Anambra State". The restive traders urged Buhari to realise that their collective wish is to the effect that if he wants to help Anambra State that he( Buhari) should give Anambra ministerial positions, schools and other developmental projects, stressing that they don't want Boko Haram prisoners at all. Agumadu who spoke to the journalists at the Regina Caeli junction of the Awka to Onitsha Expressway, said they used their protest to send signal to Buhari to take the prisoners to another state. Agumadu stated that they have since sent their protest to the governor and that no market was opened for routine trading and other commercial activities throughout the state yesterday. Similar protests which were accompanied with markets closure, also took place in Onitsha, Nnewi and Ekwulobia among others and it started after the environmental sanitation exercise when the traders got to their respective markets to open for the days business, only to be told that all the markets were shut for the protest.

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Anambra police on manhunt for armed robbers on the run

The Police in Ogidi Divison, Anambra State, said yesterday that they had commenced manhunt for wanted criminals who robbed residents of Nkpor Uno, Idemili North Local Government Area of the State on Sunday.

Police sources said that the criminals robbed scores of residence and restaurant owners at gunpoint and carted away their valuables of both.

Narrating thier ordeal, an aged woman, Mrs. Veronica Okafor and her son, Emma Okafor, accused her daughter who runs one of the restaurants of giving shelter to the armed robbers.

Mrs. Okafor who was being interviewed by the Ogidi Divisional Police Officer, DPO, Mr. Hassan Musa, said that her daughter, who is a widow, Mrs. Nwakaego Okafor harbours the criminals who perpetrated the act and pleaded to the DPO to help her sack her daughter from her husband’s premises where she stays and runs the restaurant.

She recalled that she had earlier reported her daughter before the women wing of the community and they ordered her to quit but she refused, insisting that it was her father’s compound even though she was married to another community.

Corroborating her view, the elder son to the woman, Mr. Emma Okafor revealed that the robbers took off from he’s sister’s restaurant and returned there after robbing other places.

According to him, “on arriving my sister’s restaurant they had bloody clash with the vigilante group that was pursuing them and in the process the structure was pulled down”.

He pleaded for assistance from the police, Town Union and Anambra State Government to help relocate his sister to another place to avoid the presence of the criminals in their house.

When asked to defend herself by the DPO, the sister denied the allegation adding that she is the bread winner to the family not minding that her husband is late.

she said, “I feed my mother and siblings from the proceeds I get from the restaurant”

“The girls you see here help me to run the restaurant and I have run this business for 11 years now”, she stated further.

“The said robbers ransacked my restaurant at about 12midnight, took away cash, demolished the structure and set the chairs ablaze,” she added.

Another woman who runs a restaurant within the area, Mrs. Nweke Nwakaego, also accused her of habouring criminals and told the DPO that the robbers took off from her restaurant, robbed her and her customers including other restaurants and returned to her restaurant when they were being pursued by the vigilante group.

She said, “I lost N15, 000, three handsets and one of my customers lost his N15, 000 also to the robbers”

Speaking the DPO said, “the Police cannot keep her hand akimbo and watch live and property being threatened by robbers.

“We have spread our dragnet to arrest the robbers who perpetrated the act and they are wanted by the Police before now”.

“It is when we arrest the robbers that we shall know the true picture of the robbery last Sunday night, but for now we have spread our dragnet to ensure that they are tracked down and brought to book”.

Source:Sun