Etim Ekpimah

The Akwa Ibom State Police Command has arrested a 15-year-old girl from Mbiaya, in the Uruan Local Government Area of the state for concealing a locally-made pistol that belonged to her boyfriend, Mr. Ofonime Eton, 23.

The teenager, who is a student of Itam Secondary School, in Itu, was said to have concealed the firearm in her handbag when the police intercepted a tricycle she and her boyfriend boarded.

The state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Murtala Mani, said during a press conference in Uyo on Wednesday that when the teenager discovered that the police team on duty was about stopping the tricycle for a search, he quickly passed the gun to the teenager, who concealed it in her bag.

When asked how she came about the firearm, the girl stated that they were returning from a vigil on November 6 when the police came around their tricycle, seized the gun and arrested them. She revealed that her boyfriend was a cultist but she had not seen him with a gun before that fateful day.

“We were on our way back home from a vigil which a friend invited us to. When he (Eton) saw the police, he passed the gun to me; I collected it. So, when the police came, they collected the gun from me and arrested both of us,” she confessed.

On his own part, Eton said he finished secondary school last year. The 23-year-old said he was a member of a cult known as KK.

He said, “My girlfriend was not aware that I was carrying a gun. I was wearing a pullover and when we were coming back in the morning, she was feeling cold so I decided to give her the pullover and the gun was inside the pullover.”

The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, ASP Cordelia Nwawe, also said two ladies were arrested for being in possession of hemp.

She said the two ladies were those who actually helped their brother, Anietie Simon, now at large, to sell and move the cannabis to customers.

One of the suspects, Miss Ono Simon, 18, from Idedep in the Ibiono Ibom LGA, who graduated from secondary school last year, said neither she nor her elder sister, Blessing Simon, had been involved in the illicit trade.

She said it was her elder brother, Anietie, who owned the illicit drug.

According to her, Anietie, who rented the house in which they lived, came in when they were not around and dropped the hemp in a sack where Blessing’s dirty clothes were kept.