In last four months, Enugu State had witnessed series of security threats from activities of unknown gunmen who engaged in selective assasinations and attacking security deployments across the state. Many were kept in the dark of who really these unknown gunmen were.
According to a military source who spoke under condition of anonymity on the unmasking of an Enugu based terrorist group operating under the guise of Unknown Gun Men; some high calibre criminal syndicates now see opportunities in undermining national security as a new trend and profitable business.
They reason that with the heightened political tension occasioned by polarization of polity along ethnic and religious lines, they can profit financially and politically by pretending to be advancing and protecting their regional or ethnic interests while in the real sense of it, they are only pursuing their personal goals of engineering and benefiting from the crisis.
Following the activities of the Unknown Gun Men in Imo State, Tochukwu Okeke aka Owo who double as the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor of Enugu State, seized the moment to form a terrorist group that will operate as Enugu Unknown Gun Men. His well-structured terrorists were armed to the teeth and heavily sponsored by some politicians who hope to find greater relevance in the crisis.
Their targets were policemen, soldiers and civilians. They wasted no time before attacking soldiers and policemen in Enugu State. Before the arrest of their leader Tochukwu and destruction of some of their camps, they had carried out the following attacks on police and military facilities within Enugu:
(1) Adani Police Division,
(2) a Military Checkpoint along Adani- Omoh road.
(3) Ezeagu Police Division.
(4) A military Check point along Orji River-Udi road
(5) Military Check point at Nnenwe
(6) A military checkpoint along Enugu Abakaliki Road and a host of others, including a police checkpoint at Obeagu along Enugu-Agbani road.
Tochukwu who by those attacks has masterminded the killing of over 20 soldiers and policemen, apart from the destruction of their facilities, equally received payment to kill civilians, and carry out kidnapping for the purpose of raising money
.
Prominent among his civilian victims are Late Justice Stanley Nnaji, Late Ifeanyi Okeke, Paul (the manager of Sunny Bright Motors and Prof. Samuel Ndubuisi of SEIDI and others too numerous to mention.
Recently, one of their camps was raided at Akpawfu-Amangwunze in Nkanu West Local Government Area where several arms, ammunitions, cars and charms were recovered. Tochukwu’s personal house in New Haven Enugu was equally raided and military grade weapons were recovered.
With the arrest of Tochukwu and destruction of their camps in Oji River, Agwu and Nkanu, peace has gradually returned to Enugu. Enugu people can now sleep with their two eyes close.
And In the case of Enugu State, the Unknown Gun Men are now known and Tochukwu is the face behind the mask.
The Tochukwu terror group has no sympathy to the course of IPOB and when they kill policemen and soldiers, they do so for reasons which include: a. to capture their weapons; b. to terrorise the public; c. to subdue the government into doing their bidding and settling them with huge amounts of money.
This is the unfortunate reality today that an individual who was appointed SSA on Security by the Governor without a history of service in any security institution, probably because of his popularity in the underworld has turned around to use his new platform to form a deadly terrorist group destroying the very government he was recruited to help.
Let’s hope that the family of those soldiers, policemen and civilian find solace in God and comforted by the fact that the mastermind of the untimely death of their love ones has been apprehended by the long arms of the law.
May their gentle souls rest in peace.
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