The bubble has burst, suspected kidnap kingpin, Hamisu Wadume at the centre of the controversies between the Nigerian Army and the Nigeria Police Force that led to the killings of three finest police officers and a civilian, in Taraba State has indicted an army captain, Tijani Balarabe.
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Mr Wadume told Inspector-General Muhammad Adamu and other officers that he had maintained a close relationship with military and law enforcement authorities in Taraba State for a long time.
He said he was friends with an Army captain, Tijani Balarabe, as well as a police division crime officer in Ibi, Taraba State, sources said.
Mr Wadume also said it was Mr Balarabe who ordered soldiers to open fire on the police team and set him free, before a welder machine was later brought in to break the police handcuffs.
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“He said he started hearing gunshots while the police officers were taking him away after his first arrest, only to find later that they were soldiers who had come to rescue him,” our source said. “He said the army captain asked him to claim he ran away with the handcuffs by himself and not that soldiers helped him to break loose.”
Mr Wadume also made additional ‘confessional’ statements captured on video by the police, and additional interrogation was being conducted to fully understand his activities.
He had been accused of kidnapping an oil dealer who was later freed after paying N100 million ransom.
Wadume denied any involvement in abduction-for-ransom schemes, saying the police were wrong in their categorisation of his activities.
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He told police chiefs during his initial interrogation at the Force Headquarters Tuesday afternoon that he acquired his wealth primarily from fishing, which he said he did for decades, according to multiple sources familiar with the questioning.
The police source said,
“But he also admitted to being a 419 by deceiving people with traditional medicine to get millions from them. “He insisted that he was not involved in kidnapping and the 419 was only a fraction of his large wealth.”
His skirmish with the police has gripped the country since August 6 when he was rescued by Nigerian soldiers in a fatal deadly encounter with a police team. The team from Inspector-General Intelligence Response Team (IRT) had gone to Taraba to apprehend Mr Wadume in alleged connection to a series of kidnapping incidents across central Nigeria.
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The aftermath of the attack left a broader national security bad blood, with the military issuing an advisory to personnel to be wary of police officers across the country going forward.
President Muhammadu Buhari sued for calm amongst concerned authorities and urged a thorough investigation into the attack, an exercise that had since commenced and a report expected in about two weeks.
Manhunt for Mr Wadume got underway separately from the top-flight joint police-military investigation into his deadly escape, and officials now believe his arrest will throw up fresh revelations that would aid all inquiries.
www.sojworldnews.com (c) Ausgust 22, 2019
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