Assistant Inspector-General of Police (Zone 6 Calabar), Musa Muhammed, has flagged off Operation PUFF ADDER at the Police Headquarters, Abakaliki, and called on Ebonyi stakeholders to join hands with the police to ensure success of the operation.
According to him, stakeholders’ support was necessary because the operation, going by the way it was designed, depended on the people in various communities to be successful.
Decrying the recent killings in Ikwo and Izzi local government areas of the state, he said he was grieved when he read of the alleged killings by suspected warlords from Izzi LGA and warned the two warring communities to sheath their swords or face the wrath of the tactical team.
He said the operation was a resonance of intelligence-driven policy and community intelligence strategy for the purpose of crime control . He added that the operation would help police to identify and arrest criminals in Ebonyi State.
The Commissioner for Police in the state, Awosola Awotunde, urged Ebonyi communities to stop carrying arms and learn how to dialogue when issues arose among them, instead of killing each other.
A stakeholder, Apostle Emma Mbam from Alike-Ikwo, said the crisis had lingered because of the nonchalant attitude of stakeholders from the communities involved.
He said stakeholders from the areas affected should stop playing pranks with the lives of the people, adding that the miscreants were not the ones that bought guns for war, rather the stakeholders.
Apostle Mbam called on the state government to convene a private meeting were the secrets behind the killings would be
revealed.
