Amotekum apprehended 80 suspects.

Numerous arrests have been made by the Ondo State Security Network Agency, commonly known as Amotekun, for alleged involvement in criminal activity in the state.

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The corps said the suspects had been arrested since the beginning of 2023.

Speaking on the development, the state commander of the corps, Akogun Adetunji Adeleye, said the suspects were arrested at different locations across the 18 local government areas of the state. NewsReport gathered.

According to him, 32 of the suspects have been charged in court, while investigations are ongoing in some of the cases pertaining to the suspects.

Adeleye said, “In the last three weeks, 80 criminals were arrested.” In the last week, about 32 people were taken to court for prosecution; investigations are going on in most of these cases, and some of them at the end of the day were found to be victims of circumstances, like those who came out without a means of identification at odd hours and were found where they were not supposed to be.

“Those ones, upon proper interrogation, were released to go, while some were released on bail.”
“But what we have here is about 36 men and women engaged in various criminal activities ranging from murder to anti-grazing, stealing of motorcycles, stealing of grinding machines, stealing of keke nape, stealing of various household equipment including generators, and armed robbery.”

“The majority of these ones have concluded their investigations, and some of them will be going to court early in the week next week.” This is what we have been able to put together in the last three weeks.

“A criminal is a criminal, regardless of where they come from.” We don’t want to give color to criminality; a criminal is a criminal.

“Once you engage in criminal activities, the signal we are sending is that Ondo State is a place where you can’t thrive as a criminal.” The criminals should better leave Ondo State, not only within the town but within the forest.

“Some of these criminals were arrested right inside the forest.” Again, the anti-open grazing law is in force in Ondo State, where we discourage the use of underage animals for grazing, especially when they engage in the destruction of farm products.

“Some of them engaged in very massive destruction.” We arrested some of those that were engaged in the destruction of one of the principal officers of PDP that went viral, saying that his farm was destroyed. “We caught them, and we brought them to book.”

Adeleye added, “In the last two weeks, we observed an increase in the rate of missing people within the town.” And our discreet investigations reveal that most of these people who board Okada are not registered with SITA or the Okada Association; even their bikes are not registered at all.

“So it becomes very difficult to identify them, and the majority of the victims that manage to escape that we interrogate thereafter told us that those kidnappers put on hoods and put helmets on them.”

The Amotekun CEO stated that the arrests were successful due to collaboration with other security agencies.