– A Nigerian Police officer
By fabulous reports
Two police operatives in Imo State, South-east Nigeria have been killed by unknown gunmen.
The police spokesperson in the state, Henry Okoye, disclosed this in a statement on Saturday.
Mr Okoye, an assistant superintendent of police, said the hoodlums attacked some operatives while they were on patrol duty in the early hours of Saturday, killing two of them on the spot.
The police spokesperson said the incident happened along Old Gariki Road in Okigwe in Okigwe Local Government Area of the state.
He added that the gunmen were suspected to be members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its militant wing, the Eastern Security Network.
Mr Okoye said the gunmen threw dynamite at the police patrol vehicle and subsequently engaged them in a shootout.
“In the process, two officers paid the ultimate price while four others survived the attack,” he said.
The spokesperson said the Commissioner of Police in the, Aboki Danjuma, alongside the commander of Mopol 18 and 64 of the police, on receipt of information about the incident, immediately led operatives from the police’s Special Tactical Unit to the scene of the attack for on-the-spot assessment.
He said the commissioner condemned the killing of the operatives and directed police operatives in the state to collaborate with other security agencies to track down the killers.
“More so, the Commissioner of Police, Aboki Danjuma, has mandated the assistant commissioner of police in charge of Okigwe, the divisional police officer, and other tactical units deployed in Okigwe to embark on visibility patrol, intelligence-led raids of criminal hideouts, and place watertight security to forestall any future occurrence,” the police spokesperson said.
Mr Danjuma, according to the statement, sympathised with families and friends of the slain operatives.
The police commissioner vowed that he would not condone attacks on security personnel in the state.
The police chief assured that the police in the state would do everything possible to track down the killers and prosecute them accordingly.
He appealed to residents of Okigwe and other neighbouring communities to support the police with information that might assist them in the course of their investigation and tracking down the hoodlums.
“Do not panic at the sight of the massive deployment of security operatives in Okigwe,” he told the residents.
