Fifty eight-year-old Mr. John Nnoma, who hails from Abia State, has been arrested for concealing ammunitions in fairly used clothes, popularly known as okrika, and transporting then for sale to his customers in faraway Taraba State.
The Force Public Relations Officer (FPRO), Frank Mba, disclosed this while parading 47 suspects arrested for various offences in Abuja, Thursday.
According to Mba: “Detectives acting on very credible information intercepted him and before the investigation were concluded, a total of 864 rounds of live cartridges were recovered from him.
“We still consider this as an active investigation, though we have gotten to a comfortable stage where we can talk to the media briefly.
“John normally conceal his cartridges in bags containing second hand clothing popularly known as okrika and transport the clothes with the hidden cartridges from the Southeast to Taraba State.
“He sells his cartridges in Taraba state and also sells his second clothes and return to the south east with bush meet.
“As strangely in some cases, some of the cartridges he is paid not in cash but he is paid in bush meet. In this case, he does trade by batter.
“He hands over cartridges and they hand over bush meet to him, ranging from grass cutter to bear and antelope. He also deals on treasure skin of some wild animals.
“It is still a bit strange for us that he would accept bush meet for cartridges.”
However, responding to questions, the suspect, Nnoma explained that: “I am from Abia State. My age is 58 years. I normally buy okrika and put the cartridges in the middle of the clothes. When I put clothes under, I put the cartridges in the middle and then put some clothes at the top.
“I normally sell them in a town called Maihula in Bedi Local Government Area of Taraba State.
“When the buyers come with meat, we do cut some for N3500 and others N3000, it all depends. If the person doesn’t have money, then he will collect the cartridges and give me meat. I do buy baboons, skin, grass cutter, red goat.”
