Hyacinth Chinweuba
The Director General of Oyo State Joint Security Task Force codenamed ‘Operation Burst’ Col. Oladipo Ajibola (retired) has confirmed arrest of the new leader of the notorious ‘One Million Boys,’ a cult group terrorising Ibadan, Oyo State capital city.
The new leader popularly known as ‘Eji’ became leader of the cult group following the death of Abiola Ebila recently. Ebila was recently killed by men of Operation Burst in a gun duel at one of his hideouts where he held some kidnapped victims hostage.
The DG said Eji, who was the second-in-command to the deceased leader, was facing trial after he was handed over to the police.
Ajibola said the security outfit has rid Ibadan of the menace of the notorious gang as members have run out to seek cover in neighbouring states.
He said: “Operation Burst has been able to reduce criminality in Oyo State. People now go about doing their businesses without fear, we have effected a lot of arrests in relation to cultism, yahoo boys and other criminals and hand them over to the right security agency concerned, the high profile among the criminal cases was Abiola Ebila.
“Abiola Ebila, the leader of one million boys was involved in kidnapping and we got him through one of the personalities he kidnapped while he was asking for ransom, the elimination of Abiola Ebila has sent other gang leaders out of Oyo State and we are still trailing those who are their minions.
“We have succeeded in getting one of them recently who was the second in command to the late Ebila.
“We handed him over to another security agency for proper investigation and prosecution and we urge the general public to avail the security agencies prompt information to nip criminality in the bud.”
He said Operation Burst’s activities have been extended to hot spots in Ibadan, including Foko, Odo Oba, Olomi Olodo, Oke-Ogun zone, adding the outfit’s Call Centre for distress calls would soon be commissioned.
He explained the mode of operation of Operation Burst was to only swing into action in cases other security agencies require strong back up, citing the arrest of drug traffickers, kidnappers, armed robbers, cultists and others and handing the culprits over to the agency saddled by law to prosecute each crime.