Troops intercept truck-load of smuggled ammunition ‘heading to Anambra’

Personnel of 192 battalion of the Nigerian army have arrested two suspected smugglers with a truck laden with ammunition, in Ogun state.

Onyema Nwachukwu, army spokesperson, in a statement on Monday afternoon, said the suspects were arrested on Saturday.

He said they were conveying the smuggled ammunition to Anambra before running into a stop-and-search cordon mounted by the army in Ogun. 

Nwachukwu said the smugglers had cleverly concealed the ammunition in the truck in a bid to evade security checkpoints, before they took off from Mali.

The army spokesperson said the two suspects are being grilled.

“The troops, who acted on actionable intelligence conducted a meticulous and rigorous stop and search operation along Ajilete-Owode Road in Yewa North LGA of Ogun state and uncovered the illegal ammunition in a truck with Registration number ENU 697 XY,” the statement reads.

“The truck was loaded with 720 packets of Red Star Cartridges of 12 Calibre, containing 25 cartridges per packet, totalling 18,000 cartridges and an additional 250 packets of live (black) cartridges containing 10 packets each, totalling 2500 cartridges of same calibre.

“The suspects, identified as Mr. Eric Seworvor, a Ghanaian national, and the driver, Mr. Lukman Sani, have been taken into custody and are helping with ongoing investigations.

“Information gathered during preliminary investigation revealed that the ammunition, which were surreptitiously concealed in a supposed empty truck were imported from Mali, via Idiroko International Border.

“The criminals had successfully beaten several other checkpoints en-route their final destination in Onitsha, Anambra State, where they intended to deliver the illegal ammunition.

“Timely intervention by the vigilant troops however thwarted the chaos that such volume of ammunition would have unleashed on innocent members of the public, if the criminals had succeeded.”