Anambra Governor Links Criminal Operations to Foreign Funding

Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo of Anambra state has detailed how criminals systematically target security personnel to acquire weapons.

In an interview monitored by RadioNow’s newsdesk, The Governor explained the disturbing pattern where armed groups organize attacks on police checkpoints, killing officers and soldiers to steal their AK-47 rifles.

“You know, you had something that was going on in the southeast, very unfortunate, where these criminals would organize themselves, get to checkpoints, kill policemen or soldiers on checkpoints, collect their AK-47, and nobody actually asked, well, how would these people who are collecting this AK-47 burn down the place, sack the entire police there, enter there and carry their arms and go away? Now, when they were collecting this and going, nobody actually, many people never stopped to ask or to wonder, how will these people be feeding one month, six months, one year in the bush without using the same arms for criminality? And, basically, what you found was that a whole lot of the arms that they were taking from the security agencies are the same arms that they have torn back.”

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According to the Governor, his administration is taking decisive action against these criminal groups. He acknowledged the complex nature of the security challenges, noting that some of these operations are allegedly financed from abroad, requiring coordination with Interpol and federal agencies.

“There are many dimensions to this in terms of access to arms. There is a thesis about the transnational nature of this criminality. Those who contribute money from abroad and all of that and so on to finance some of this, fair enough, and this is where the Interpol and the federal agencies and so forth, we have intel on some of this, but that’s their job to do.”