CLO wants Onitsha arms dealer probed

By Vincent Ujumadu

AWKA— THE Civil Liberties Organisation, CLO, in Anambra State has called for full investigations into the recent arrest of one Mr. Martin Anokwara over alleged smuggling of about 100,000 ammunitions and a gun valued at over N6 Million into the country.

Describing the incident as a national embarrassment, especially when the importer confessed to the police that the ammunition and gun were on transit to Onitsha Main Market for onward distribution to the end users in the state, the state chairman of CLO, Mr. Alloy Attah, said  that the ugly incident of gun running took the centre stage during the administration of Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju.

“Since the introduction of monstrous vigilantism in the form of Onitsha Traders Association, OTA, boys and the dreaded Anambra Vigilante Services, AVS,  aka Bakassi Boys during the Mbadinuju administration in the state between 2000 to 2003, Anambra State has been literarily under the siege of secret arms proliferation.

“There are strong suspicions that the barbarous conducts that marred the ‘suspended’ OTA and the dislodged Bakassi boys inglorious epoch are still perpetrated discreetly in the state. There have been reports of serious human right violations at the Onitsha Main Market in recent times. The market located near the River Niger had served as torture chambers for some vigilante groups and is also alleged to be another major source of illicit guns in circulation in the state,” he said.