Head
of the Intelligence Response Team, Assistant Commissioner of Police
Abba Kyari, has disclosed that he had to take a ride on a commercial
motorcycle, popularly known as okada, to enable him move faster to the
Magodo GRA Phase II residence of notorious kidnap kingpin, Chukwudi
Onuamadike, aka Evans, to effect his arrest.
According
to reports, Kyari told correspondents on the phone that to avoid any
delay due to the usual chaotic traffic situation on Lagos roads, he had
to quickly jump on a commercial motorcycle from his Ikeja GRA location
to Magodo GRA Phase II to arrest Evans, who he had earlier been informed
by his men already deployed in the area, was making frantic
preparations to leave his mansion very soon.
He added that in the
early hours of Sunday, “At about 1.30am, Evans and some of his gang
members went out to a club around Ikeja and returned at 5.10am.
So,
we were very sure Sunday would be our day. So, I decided to go and
cleanup myself and have a little rest before I returned to Magodo. I was
still resting when my guys called that the target was set; that it
appeared he wanted to go out. So, I had to take Okada from where I was,
to meet up.
“You won’t believe this, but it’s the truth. Do you
know that when my surveillance team alerted me of the suspect’s presence
at his Magodo mansion, I had no other option than to take Okada from
where I was at Ikeja GRA to Magodo?”
Kyari said though it might sound funny, policemen
sometimes must do “unconventional things” to get at their targets or
what they actually wanted.
“I was approaching former tollgate,
when I got another call that he might drive out any moment. So, I
instructed my guys to give him warning shots; that was to announce our
presence, and that kept him indoors until I got there and directed the
affairs,” he said.
The IRT boss stated that he and his team had
been on Evans’ trail for close to 10 years until the kidnap kingpin met
his waterloo last Sunday.
“We have been following him, through
intelligence gathering and surveillance, but we have always lost him. He
is a very intelligent criminal with a very sound IQ, I must tell you,”
he said.
Kyari further disclosed that he and his team mounted a
surveillance on Evans five days before last Sunday, when he was finally
arrested.
“When we tracked him to Lagos, I was in Abuja. The
moment I was sure he was in Lagos, we moved down to Lagos on Monday of
that week. We came by road and slept at a police station close to Evans’
residence and started our surveillance on him,” he said.