Large Haul of Arms Seized in Lagos
A few months to the national elections, Nigerian security operatives have launched a manhunt for the owner of a shipment of arms that was intercepted at the Apapa Lagos port yesterday, following a tip-off. A joint force of Security personnel under the leadership of the State Security Service found 13 shipping containers of 40-feet size holding grenades, rocket launchers and mortars.
Confirming the haul, Marilyn Ogar, a Spokesman for the SSS said the interception was a result of increased surveillance following the October 1 bombing in which a few dozen people were killed. The SSS Official added that the contents and findings from the other detained 12 containers would soon be made public, saying “The service has launched investigations immediately on the discovery and the circumstances surrounding it.”
Security situations, which have been tenser in the nation’s capital Abuja since the Golden Jubilee blasts, have been in steady decline for a few years with increasing cases of kidnappings, ransom demands and armed robbery in spite of the disarmament of the Niger Delta militants following an amnesty by the President last year.
In Calabar Cross Rivers state in the south-south oil region, the State Governor Liyel Imoke declared a dusk-to-dawn curfew after thirty people were killed in a communal land dispute between Boje and Nsadop communities in Boki Local Government Area at the weekend. Responding to a question on the protocol in Nigerian public service last week, Vice President Namadi Sambo informed an audience while delivering a lecture to the Oxford International Relations Society at the leading UK institution of learning that President Ebele Goodluck Jonathan did not wish to be addressed as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, raising questions about who indeed is in command of security in the black world’s largest nation.
THEWILL reports that the shipper of the seized shipment did not declare the true content of the containers which were suspected to have been shipped to Nigeria from the Middle East.
More @ THE WILL reports
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