The Chairman Ibesikpo Asutan transition committee, Mr Ita Udombon has disassociated the council from activities of a group of youths parading as members of a traffic enforcement committee in Ibesikpo Asutan Local Government Area.
Udombon while addressing journalists on the nefarious activities of the group which he described as a criminal gang said “the said group is not known to the council. They are on their own. I have been briefed on their activities and have directed the Police and Director of DSS to swing into action and cause them to face the law”.
“No government can condone such level of criminality. We will not tolerate it. The transition committee will do everything to ensure the security and safety of citizens and residents of Ibesikpo Asutan”, he added.
The transition committee chairman while sympathising with one of the victims of the gang who had visited the local government council to report the activities of the gang to the authorities, said the council had since last year disbanded the traffic enforcement committee it constituted and urged keke operators and residents of the area to alert the Police about any person or group of persons who go around in the guise of doing the job of traffic enforcement committee.
“I am calling on the people of Ibesikpo Asutan and keke operators in Nung Udoe to alert the Police if they find anybody going round to molest any keke rider in the name of traffic enforcement committee. The council had since disbanded the one it constituted based on security advice. So we don’t know those who wreak this havoc and trying to give the council a bad name”.
Mr. Ita Udombon has called on the Divisional Police to intensify patrol along the Aka-Nung Udoe road to save commuters and tricycle operators from more havocs from these criminals.
Investigations reveal that at least six commuters including a pregnant woman have died and many others wounded between August 2015 and January 2016 on Aka- Nung Udoe road as a result of activities of a group of boys parading as traffic enforcement team.
Consequent upon this, residents of Ibesikpo Asutan have called on the Commissioner of Police and other security chiefs in the State to investigate, arrest and prosecute those responsible for the mayhem.
Residents of the area who made the petition explained that a certain notorious gang has been parading the Aka-Nung Udoe road on motorcycles in groups of three to disturb operations of tricycles on the road.
The first death caused by the activities of this group took place October last year around the abattoir at Ikot Obio Odongo.
An eye witness, Destiny Bassey said the sad event occurred when two groups of three young men on two motorcycles gave a keke rider a hot chase from Nung Udoe junction to the abattoir where the tricycle ramped onto the median on the highway and burst into flames leaving the keke rider dead and a passenger injured.
Two weeks later the same group of boys clubbed another keke operator to coma near the National Cereal Research Institute, at Owot Uta. The offence of these victim has been that they had picked –up passengers on the highway between Nung Udoe park and Ibesikpo Secondary Commercial School, Nung Udoe, which has been marked ‘’no stopping” zone for keke by the illegal traffic enforcement committee.
Before the dead of the last three victims of this gang, it was reported that a brawl ensued between keke riders operating in that route and members of the gang which later degenerated into crisis leading to the shooting of one Imo Shelton Tom, a member of the illegal traffic enforcement committee on the leg by a member of a combat team of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps.
“After that, the team suspended their operations for a while only to come back to cause the greatest havoc at the U-turn in Owot Uta, which left three commuters including a pregnant woman dead” a resident told this reporter.
The latest victim of the group, Edet Ibong, a photographer who was knocked down by a tricycle that was chased by members of the gang is currently on clutches.
Residents say keke operators are now reluctant to ply the route for fear of unnecessary intimidation, extortion and molestation by the gang.
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