Poloce in Borno State have arrested three soldiers and 22 others, mostly undergraduates, for alleges cult activities.
The state’s commissioner of police, Mohammed Aliyu announced the arrest on Sunday.
Aliyu, who paraded the suspects, said they belong to a group, Neo Black Movement (NBM), which has members cutting across students of higher institutions in Maiduguri, business community and they recruited personnel of the Nigerian Army.
Parading the suspects before reporters on Sunday, the Borno Commissioner of Police, Mohammed Aliyu, said the group were caught at about 2am in a hotel built at a deserted area of Maiduguri during an initiation gathering.
Aliyu, who was flanked at the briefing by both the heads of Department of State Security Service and National Security and Civil Defence Corps in Borno State, said:”The strategies put in place have again yielded results as 25 members of Neo Black Movement (NBM) were arrested for criminal conspiracy, unlawful assembly, cultism and armed robbery.”
He said:”Following a tip-off, a total of Twenty Five (25) members of the Neo Black Movement (NBM) cult most of whom are students of University of Maiduguri, Ramat Polytechnic and dismissed military personnel were arrested by the command operatives in collaboration with Hunters in Bagani Hotel at Fillin Maideribe, Abuja Sharaton while they were unlawfully gathered and conducting their initiation procession with candles, calabashes containing reasonable quantity of red substance suspected to be human blood and charms of different kinds.”
He added that: “Meanwhile, on sighting command operatives/hunters, one of them (now at large) fired a gun shot in the air and took to his heels.
He recalled that recently, there are reports on the activities of Cultists who are habitually intimidating innocent persons, conspiring and robbing filing stations of valuables within the Metropolis (Maiduguri) while armed with dangerous weapons and it is reasonably believed that those condemnable acts were committed by members of \Neo Black Movement (NBM). This time, members of Neo Black Movement (NBM) ran out of luck and the command again delivered on its promise.
The CP said some of the things they were caught with include: 16 Assorted phones of different make, three calabashes containing reasonable quantity of red liquid suspected to be human blood, one live 7.62mm ammunition, among other things.
Meanwhile some of the arrested suspects who spoke to journalists, insisted that they were not cultists and that the substance in the calabashes were local drinks with some alcohol to make them high.
Handling over the soldiers caught in the clampdown, the head of military counter-insurgency in the North East (Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole), Maj. Gen. Olusegun Adeniyi said the three soldiers, Lance Corporals Augustine Aronlo, David Emmanuel and Private Onu Chidubem, said since their arrest they have been tried and dismissed from the Army.
He however warned that the suspects should not be dismissed as cultists as facts pointed to the fact that they are armed robbers and kidnappers.
He said before the arrest, the military authorities in the areas have received intel of planned kidnapping of university students under the guise of one of the numerous crimes committed by Boko Haram.
He assured members of the public that the military was out to ensure of their lives and property and that no one even soldiers found culpable would be spared
