Governor Alex Otti of Abia State has promised to intensify security cooperation with states that share boundaries with Abia to prevent incursion of criminals from neighbouring states.
This collaboration by South-East governors, he said, was expedient to ensure that criminals don’t stray into Abia from other states to commit crimes.
Otti stated this in the wake of Saturday’s killing of two Chinese miners and their police escort at a mining site in Uturu, Isuikwuato Local Government Area of Abia State.
Two Chinese expatriates — Mr Quan and Mr Cai — and a police escort, Inspector Audu Saidu, were killed, with the attackers carting away the officer’s rifle.
The victims were ambushed on Friday while en route to a mining site in the Agukwu-Amaya, Ndundu Community.
The governor in a statement by his Special Adviser to the Governor (Media and Publicity), Ferdinand Ekeoma was quoted as describing Saturday’s killing as dastardly.
Some of the states that border Abia are Enugu, Ebonyi, Imo, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, and Anambra States.
The statement read, “The governor also promised to intensify security cooperation with states that share boundaries with Abia to build a formidable security architecture that would ensure that criminals don’t stray into Abia from such states to commit crimes on Abia soil, as was the case in this situation.”
He vowed to support all efforts to apprehend the killers as he charged security agencies in the state to arrest those behind the ambush and killing.
“Governor Otti is enraged that the perpetrators of the dastardly act could unleash such unprovoked attack on innocent persons, assuring that his government would provide the necessary support to security agents to ensure that the killers don’t go scot-free,” the statement read.
The Abia State Police Command had on Saturday reported that it received a distress call about the attack on Chinese expatriates and their escorts.
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