Two students of the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) were among five suspects security agents paraded before reporters on Wednesday for allegedly trafficking in arms from neighbouring Chad Republic to Nigeria.

The State Security Service (SSS), which paraded them in Maiduguri, said they were caught with rocket launchers and 50 AK-47 rifles, among other weapons, and with N4.8 million cash.

Mbono Musa, a student of creative arts, and Yakubu Sule, a final year student of sociology, are grinding their noses against the cells of the SSS in Maiduguri, along with Ilesha Emmanuel, Amos Akila, and Daniel Chayi Gyang.

They allegedly trafficked weapons concealed in car doors, packaged stock fish, and other bagged foodstuff.

State SSS Director, Abdullahi Ahmed, said the suspects were caught trying to smuggle over 50 different sets of AK-47 riffles to Plateau and Taraba States.

Found in their possession, according to him, were rocket launchers, ammunition, grenades, and N4,823,500 cash; all concealed in a V-booth Mercedes Benz and a Peugeot 504 wagon taxi loaded with dried fish.

Four of the suspects were going to Jos. One, Emmanuel, was heading to Wukari, Taraba State.

Ahmed said the four travelling to Jos were arrested on July 30 with 31 riffles, two rocket launchers, N4.8 million, computer ware, and assorted ammunition.

Emmanuel was arrested on August 12 trying to smuggle 24 sets of AK 47 rifles and hundreds of ammunition, including a sophisticated rocket launcher.

Akila, 29, suspected to be the kingpin, was arrested in Kaduna in 2009 but was freed, only to be arrested later in Maiduguri.

A native of Taraba, he told Daily Independent that he lives in Cameroon doing business as fish merchant.

Akila confessed that one Yusuf sent the weapons to him from Cameroon to hand over to one Jauro who lives in Jos, but that the weapons were to be handed over in Bauchi, even though he claimed not to know the contact.

Said he: “We were taking the guns to Jauro who was going to come to Bauchi to collect them. We were later going to be forwarded with information about where he was to collect the guns.

“I am not a driver but I was the person to drive the car, which belongs to Jauro. I am from Taraba State, I am a fish farmer in Cameroon. I ply my trade in Cameroon.

“Someone sent the consignment from Cameroon and I went to collect it. I was just arriving at the house with the consignment when I met the security operatives.

“I do not know where the guns are to be taken, but Jauro asked us to meet him in Bauchi. I don’t know where Jauro resides; we met at Mararaban Jos in Plateau State.”

Gyang, 53, said he is a civil servant in Riyom Council, Plateau
State and that he came to Maiduguri for three days sightseeing when his friend, Abubakar, in Maraban Jema’a in Jos, encouraged him to follow Akila who was coming to Maiduguri with the friend’s car, the Mercedes Benz.

He narrated that “on July 30, 2010, Akila picked me up in the hotel and we drove to a house in Maiduguri.

“While in the house, some people came knocking and I asked Akila if he was expecting any one, he said no. I opened the gate and SSS men appeared and began searching the house. I wasn’t aware there were weapons in the house.

In his own account, Sule, 25, said he “came to the house last Friday. I am a 400 level sociology student of the University of Maiduguri. I have known Akila for the past three years. We were not going out for robbery.

“I had just had my bath and was going to leave for school. I do not know where they were heading to. Akila called me and I came to the house.”

Musa confirmed that he is also from Taraba and a 400 level student of creative arts at UNIMAID.

source: www.independentngonline.com

Our students are getting sophisticated but in the extremely negative sense. This is an eye-opener for our security agencies as they wouldnt have to bother too much about the route through which those sophisticated weapons used in Jos came in. But trust them, they wont dig deep enough in their investigations to reveal the masterminds but will only be satisfied to deal with the couriers forgetting that the masters would soon recruit other couriers to bring in even a larger and far more sophisticated consignment.