Sambo’s house: Suspected gunmen arrested on hospital bed

BARELY 24 hours after gunmen shot at the family residence of Vice-President Namadi Sambo in Zaria, Kaduna State, police on Tuesday said they had arrested two suspects believed to have launched the attack.

Curiously, the two suspects were said to have been arrested on their hospital beds while receiving treatment for injuries.

Acting Police Public Relations Officer Kaduna State Command, Balteh  Abdulrazaq, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, told our correspondent that “one of the suspects who sustained injuries from gunshot during a gun fight with the policemen guarding the house was identified on a hospital bed by one of the injured policemen and he was arrested immediately.

“Also one of  the  policemen was able to identify one  of the four robbery suspects we arrested this morning (yesterday) in Zaria  as one of the suspects in the house attack. One of the robbery suspects was killed in a crossfire by our men.”

Gunmen on motorbikes on Monday shot at the two mobile policemen guarding Sambo’s house at Tundun-Wada, Zaria. While the policemen sustained injuries, a cobbler said to be mending one of the policemen’s shoes was hit and he died on the spot.

The house was under renovation and had not been lived in by the VP’s family since last year when it was attacked in the violence that followed the 2011 elections in Kaduna State.

A visit to the house on Tuesday by our correspondent showed that stern-looking soldiers had been deployed in the area. A barricade was mounted to prevent people from passing in front of the VP’s building.

Meanwhile, the force headquarters on Tuesday praised itself on its anti-terror strategies, saying it had been working and winning the war on terror and criminality.

The police said it was able to frustrate attacks on its formations and stations in Sokoto through a change of tactics.

Deputy Force Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba, told The PUNCH in Abuja that the suicide attacks on the Ungwar Rogo police station and the AIG zonal office at Marina, Sokoto, on Monday was foiled by the new security measures introduced by the force.

Mba said the two suicide attacks failed largely because the force had evolved proactive strategies which he said were assisting the police to record progress against hoodlums.

“No attack would be given primacy over others; every criminal incident would be treated as a threat against national security,” the police spokesman said.

Asked if security agencies had justified the huge security allocation to them, Mba parried the question, saying the issue was “beyond my domain.”