The Anambra State police command has blamed the unwillingness of residents of the state to provide information for the rampant activities of gunmen terrorising the state.
Echeng Echeng, the Commissioner of Police in the state, disclosed this on Monday while addressing journalists in Awka.
He said the gunmen who carried out the attacks in the state are not unknown.
“There is nothing unknown about the gunmen terrorising Anambra State. We have been trying to mystify something that is not just there,” Mr Echeng said.
“These people are not spirits. They live with us. They are our nephews, our cousins, and our brothers, and they live in our communities. We know who they are,” he said.
According to him, “the narrative that the gunmen are Fulani herders is not true. The people operating as gunmen are Igbos.”
The commissioner described the claim that the gunmen live in the forest as false, adding that the gunmen usually return to their communities after they were done with the attacks.
The police boss explained that the terror group only has shrines in the forest, adding that some shrines had been destroyed by police operatives.
“These criminals live among the people. The major challenge police are having in the fight against the gunmen in Anambra State is that residents, especially community leaders in the affected communities, are not giving us information about the identities of these killer men to us.
“We should be able to come up with information of what is happening in our communities, not glorifying them and tagging them as unknown gunmen,” Mr Echeng added.
