Anambra Bandits: Army Probes Source Of Weapon

The Nigerian Army has constituted a team to investigate the source of the heavy weapons recovered from two suspected robbers recently in Anambra.

The robbers were members of a seven-man gang which attacked a new generation bank in Ihiala town last week.

Lt. Col. Mark Mamman, the Commanding Officer, 14 Field Engineer Regiment, Onitsha, told newsmen that his officers and men demonstrated exemplary gallantry against the robbers.

“We foiled the robbery operation at an inner rural link road between Uli in Anambra State and Ogunta in Imo State.

“But we are still retaining the two captured robbers, who sustained bullet wounds, in order to investigate their access to the general purpose machine gun and RPG-7 rocket launcher found on them.

“These weapons are not easy to come by and it is also too technical to be handled by just anybody except with due training on their usage,” he said.

He disputed media reports which credited the police and a vigilance group with foiling the robbery operation.

“Soldiers from Onitsha did the track down of the robbers and the eventual capturing of two of the bandits on Tuesday without any human casualty.

“I received a distress call from the state police commissioner at about 11am after the robbers had successfully operated around 10am and 10.30am and made their escape with their loot from a new generation bank in the area.

“When we got to Ihiala, the locals and bank staff showed us the link road the robbers took to escape.

“As luck would have it, after about 20 minutes speed drive, the robbers made a u-turn and started heading back to the Onitsha-Owerri.

“When they noticed us coming close to them, they opened fire and we responded for over 30 minutes.