Anambra: CP Explains how Two Suspected Kidnappers of Anambra Lawmaker Escaped
Anambra state Commissioner of Police, Ikioye Orutugu, has said that the story of two suspected kidnappers of Anambra lawmaker Justice Azuka escaping from police custody after their arrest was regrettable even as he insisted that they were not the principal suspects but drivers.
Justice Azuka, who represented Onitsa 1, state constituency in the Anambra state House of Assembly, was on December 24,2025 abducted by unknown persons in his native Onitsha at about 9pm while returning for the Christmas celebrations.
Nothing was heard of him again until his decomposing body was found around the second Niger bridge area in Onitsha on February 6.
But as the police swung into their investigation, about nine suspects were arrested in connection with the kidnap of the lawmaker and paraded before Journalists at the police command headquarters in Awka by the former commissioner of police in the state, Obono Nnaghe Itam.
A few days later the social media was awash with the news that two of the suspects had escaped from the police custody.
But at a press conference in Awka on Thursday, Itam’s successor, in a very somber mood, said the issue, critical as it were, was regrettable as he went on to update the people of the state on his findings.
CP Orutugu said that though the issue happened two days before he assumed office as commissioner of police in the state, he would not shirk from his responsibility of delving into what actually transpired, emphasizing that there had been a lot of misinformation.
He said his findings showed that the incident of the escapees happened on February 8,2025 in Obosi, Idemili North Local Government Area of the state when two suspects one Chinedu Okoli from Imo state and Ikemefuna Ossai from Delta state who had earlier confessed to being drivers to some of the kidnappers were being used as decoy to go get the buyer of stolen vehicles from the kidnappers.
The alleged buyer, he said,, resides in Asab, a, the Delta state capital.
“But they have confessed and are being taken to Asaba. But they are not the principal suspects but drivers to the suspects.
He said that his findings showed that when they were being taken to the godfather, who buys vehicles of kidnapped victims from them, the man sighted them and, suspecting that the police officers came for him, took to his heels.
This, he said, prompted the accompanying police officers to slight from the vehicle, which the drivers were piloting in pursuit of the suspect, and by the time they got him and back, the two drivers had escaped into a nearby bush.
He said that the story alleging that the principal suspects had escaped was false.
That notwithstanding, the error by the officers was one too many, and they would face the music.
He also said that all the principal suspects arrested in connection with the kidnap and murder of the lawmaker are still in their custody and that the command had intensified the manhunt for the arrest of the fleeing drivers.
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