Edo Police Parade 16 Suspects For Child Defilement, Vandalism, Staged Kidnapping

Operatives of the Edo State Police Command have arrested a 42-year-old man who identified himself as Oji Okoro for allegedly sodomising a 12-year-old boy.

Okoro was paraded alongside 15 other suspects for various crimes, including alleged kidnapping, vandalism, staged kidnapping, and unlawful possession of firearms, among other offences.

Parading the suspects, the command's Public Relations Officer, Eno Ikoedem, said: "This man (Oji Okoro) committed an unnatural offence; he defiled a 12-year-old boy."

Also paraded were Donatus Martins, 26, and his friend, for allegedly vandalising cables and equipment belonging to Africa Independent Television's (AIT) Benin office.

Though the police spokesperson alleged the suspects had vandalised equipment worth over N4 million from the office since it stopped operations, the suspects confessed they had gone to the office for vandalism and sold "the first one for N75,000. We then paid the bikeman N5,000."

They gave further details of their operations, saying, "The first one, we stole three DVDs and three cables of copper wire. The second operation was N90,000, and the buyer gave us N70,000, so N20,000 is remaining. It was during the third operation that we were caught."

Martins confessed that he works as a bricklayer and that whenever there is no job for him, he and his friend look for irons to sell to buyers to make a living.

Also paraded was Chigozie Anthony, who allegedly lured a girl from TikTok to his house, kidnapped her and demanded N500,000 from the girl's parents, which they paid before he was arrested.

Anthony denied the allegations, claiming that the girl was his girlfriend and they both planned the act.

He explained: "It's a plan between my girlfriend and me. We have been chatting for over a month now. So she came to my place and told me that she wanted to do business. She said that after the work she's learning now, which is nursing, she would need N800,000 and something."

He continued: "She will finish her nursing training next month. She then said that I should hide her so her family would pay money. That was how I hid her and demanded N500,000, which the parents paid."

Also among those paraded were Ajayi Godwin, arrested for alleged unlawful possession of firearms at Auchi, and Akinla Lawrence and his friend, paraded for allegedly vandalising pipelines at the Okada axis, Ovia North East Local Government Area of the state.