Benue State Police Command, has uncovered an illegal local gun factory in Oju Local Government Area of the State.
The State Commissioner of Police, Fatai Owoseni, who led his men to the site of the factory located at Amyuwogbu-Ibilla in Oju, said the legal factory owner, Abi Odah, was arrested alongside his son, Kingsley Abi, and one other, Thomas Ode, alias Tommy Tommy.
Owoseni, paraded three suspects before newsmen at the Oju Divisional Police headquarters in Oju, explaining that his men were originally investigating a case of abduction and rape when they discovered the factory.
He said that 19-year-old Kingsley and his friend, Tommy, 17, were earlier apprehended following an allegation of abduction and rape of a 15-year-old girl; but that while the Police was tracing evidence of the crime to Kingsley’s home, they found prohibited items in his father’s workshop behind their house.
The Police commissioner added that further search into the activities of Abi, who is popularly known as a blacksmith, revealed that he was fabricating dangerous weapons while disguising them as dane guns for hunters.
“Some of the locally fabricated equipment use AK-47 prohibited ammunition,” Owoseni said.
The suspect, Abi, however denied that all the tools belonged to him despite admitting that he manufactured dane guns for hunters and had sold many of them to those who patronised him.
