The Abia State Commissioner of Police, Mr Anthony Ogbizi, has paraded four robbery suspects who were arrested in a hotel apartment in Umuahia while allegedly planning their operation. Ogbizi, who paraded the suspects at the command’s headquarter in Umuahia on Tuesday, called on hoteliers in the state to cooperate with the police in the fight against armed robbery.
While tasking hotel owners to fix security doors in their reception rooms, Ogbizi said the security arrangement would help the hotel management to detect suspected criminals intending to lodge in their hotels.
He said the arrested suspects were nabbed following a tip-off from the hotel where they had lodged to plan their operation.
Ogbizi added that an English gun was found on one of the suspects when they were trailed and arrested by police operatives.
He said, “It might interest you to know that we have arrested five suspected armed robbers in one of the hotels in the same area these suspects were arrested.
“One of the suspects who owned an English gun, shot into the air to convince the others that the gun was working, it was based on that that the hotel management called and informed the police about the incident.
“We have warned hotel owners to improve on their security architecture, because if such an incident repeats itself we will be left with no alternative than to close the hotel.
“Although hoteliers may not know the intention of those coming to lodge in their hotels, as a result of the constant experience we have had, if the hoteliers do not implement the security measure we asked them to put in place, and we discover that criminals still lodge in their hotels to plan their operations, we will have no other option but to close down any hotel that is found wanting.”
Confessing to the crime, one of the suspects, who gave his name as Daniel, said he bought the gun for self-defence from an unidentified seller in Port Harcourt.
He said he planned to get a licence for the gun before he was arrested.
“A friend of mine who came back from the US sold the gun to me when he was going back. I bought the gun for N100,000. “I have no intention to rob with the gun; I only acquired it to protect myself, and I released a shot into the air because I was drunk,” he said.