BY FRANCIS IGATA

ENUGU—The Enugu State Police command has arrested the mastermind of the attack that led to the death of three tricycle operators,popularly known as Keke-Napeb, who were gruesomely murdered in uncompleted building site at Ugwuaji axis of Enugu metropolis last month. He is Nonso Chibuke.

Ugwuanyi

The victims are Babangida Sale,   Ashahabu Dauda both from Kano State and Ismahil Abdulahi from Bauchi State.

The killing had elicited public outcry as Civil Society groups charged security agencies in the state to unravel the owner of the property where the suspected ritual killing took place.

The suspect, an indigene of Otolo in Nnewi, Anambra State confessed that he relocated to Enugu from Abuja, alongside his accomplice, after they had killed five commercial motorcycle operators”.

Speaking to journalists while parading him alongside other suspects at the Enugu State Police command’s headquarters, the Commissioner of Police, Nwodibo Ekechukwu, disclosed that Nonso and his accomplice, now late, escaped after committing similar act at Keffi in Nasarawa State and relocated to Enugu in early January, 2016.

The commissioner stated that the two suspects, initially engaged in crimes of killing commercial motorcycles riders in Abuja, added that in 2014, they extended   their operations to Nasarawa state and had stolen so many motorcycles mainly in Ado area of the state.

According to the CP,  “Their modus operandi   was to ask each tricycle operator conveying them to drop them at their purported building site, normally in a lonely place.

“They would then request the operator to carry blocks for them in the tricycle, to another location. They would hit the   tricycle operator with a big iron hammer on the head repeatedly and kill him.

“This was the method used in killing their seven victims on two dates each in January and March, 2016 at various times of the day. In an instance, the head of one of the victims was shattered”, the commissioner further stated.

It was equally disclosed that after killing the victim, the suspects would forge a dealer receipt to convince prospective buyers and then sell the Keke at prices ranging from N205,000 to N350,000 at Enugu and Nnewi.

Meanwhile, the Police Command also paraded car snatchers, armed robbery suspects, pipeline vandals, with assurance of its commitment to make criminals uncomfortable in the State.