Two weeks after suspected cultists captured and killed the Divisional Police Officer of Ahoada in Rivers State, Bako Angbashim, the police had neither found his body nor arrested the prime suspect, Gift Okpara.
Recall that Angbashim, a Superintendent of Police, had led his men to raid criminal hideouts in Odemude community, Ahoada West Local Government Area of the state on September 8, 2023, when a dreaded cult group led by Okpara ambushed them, opened fire and eventually captured Angbashim, decapitated his body and filmed their action.
But since the incident, the State Police Command under Commissioner of Police, Emeka Nwonyi, had made two attempts to recover the remains of the late DPO and arrest the miscreants without success.
At the last attempt, Nwonyi, while briefing newsmen in Port Harcourt last week, said operatives gunned down four of Okpara’s men during a shootout with the police who were on an operation in Odemude community to recover late Angbashim’s corpse.
Nwonyi also said some arrested suspects and others linked with the DPO’s murder were still undergoing investigation.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Operations, Rivers State Command, Ade Adepoju, while addressing a crowd of protesters from Ekpeye Kingdom last Friday, vowed that Angbashim’s killers’ would be brought to justice within a fortnight.
The protesters had expressed dismay over the gruesome murder of the DPO who they said had brought restored peace in many communities and called on the command to ensure his killers were apprehended and made to face the laws.
Responding, Adepoju stated that the command was equally pained because according to him, late Angbashim was “one of our gallant and very efficient officers” who put in his all in fighting crime and criminality.
He stated, “We will spare no one, I can assure you that. We will do the needful. Ekpeye Kingdom will be good again. We are doing all we can and I am sure we will succeed.”
Our correspondent reports that following SP Angbashim’s death, Nwonyi deployed another DPO to Ahoada with the task of recovering the former’s remains as well as to track down his killers.
Recall that Nwonyi, at an event in Port Harcourt revealed that late Angbashim was deceived by the dare-devil cultists who tricked him that they were willing to submit their weapons and embrace amnesty.
