BENIN CITY ––In a renewed effort to check the recent spate of kidnappings in Edo State, Police in Benin City have apprehended six suspected kidnappers.Among the six suspects, are two persons believed to be the brains behind last month’s abduction and gruesome murder of a famous Benin – based transporter, Deacon Godwin Ajere, Managing Director (MD) of “ God is Good Motors”, Benin City.The six suspected kidnappers, The NIGERIAN OBSERVER authoritatively gathered, were nabbed at various locations in the city, including Uwelu Motor Spare Parts Market following intelligence reports received by security operatives of the State Police Command Headquarters, Benin City.One of the suspected killers of Deacon Godwin Ajere, MD, “God is Good Motors”, now in police net, The NIGERIAN OBSERVER investigation revealed, is his close family member who on his arrest had with him the hand-set of the victim.Though the suspects are yet to be paraded before newsmen, some of the victim’s relatives and clan’s-men who thronged the State Police Headquarters yesterday morning,possibly to see the faces of the suspected killers told The NIGERIAN OBSERVER that one of their own was among those arrested.Two of the men who claimed to have left their village in the Eastern part of Nigeria because of the development, however, disclosed that the arrest had made the deceased’s family to postpone indefinitely the burial ceremony earlier scheduled to begin tomorrow.While confirming the successful arrest of the six suspected kidnappers, the Command spokesman, ASP Peter Ogboi stated that the police in the state would not allow hoodlums to wreak the economy of Edo State, maintaining that the implication of kidnapping on a state’s economy could best be imagined in the face of the current global meltdown.He however assured investors and every law-abiding resident of adequate police protection, just as he sued for a collaboration in the renewed and re-strategised onslaught on criminals.Benin City has recently be on siege of kidnappers with over 10 victims, including a seven-year-old child and two women reported in the last few months.It will be recalled that the late Deacon Godwin Ajere was reportedly abducted in front of his church on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by some gunmen and two days later his corpse was found in a town near Benin City.Apparently worried by the increasing spate of kidnapping in the state, the State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole last month reportedly pledged the sum of N1 million reward for any person who provided useful information that could lead to arrest of kidnappers.Also, a middle-aged woman slumped and died soon after she alighted from a commercial motorcycle that brought her from unknown destination to Ring Road, yesterday morning.The sad incident which attracted large crowd of sympathisers at the front of Urhokpota Hall where her corpse was lying, The NIGERIAN OBSERVER gathered, occurred about 7:30 a.m. yesterday.Though no one knows what transpired between her and the commercial motorcyclist, eye witness disclosed that the victim had successfully paid the commercial motorcyclist before she slumped and died.Hours after the incident, men of the Oba Market Police Division arrived the scene and took the corpse in their patrol van marked NPF 3392 to a mortuary.The victim’s relatives who were at the scene however declined comment.By MIKE OSAROGIAGBON
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