Photo Credit: Punch
About 2,000 cult members on Saturday embraced the amnesty declared by Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike.
The cult members, who were adept in kidnappings, killings and armed robberies, surrendered their weapons to members of the state Amnesty Committee in Isiokpo, the headquarters of Ikwerre Local Government Area of the state as they embraced peace, Punch reports.
The weapons surrendered by them included AK 47 rifles, G3, dane guns, dynamite, NATO gun and detonators.
Speaking after receiving weapons from the repentant cult members, the Chairman of the Amnesty Committee, Mr. Ken Chinda, explained that peace would return to Ikwerre council area after the event.
The cult groups were identified as Iceland and Debam. Chinda urged them to not to go back to their old ways of crime, saying that the state government was sincere about helping them to achieve their dreams. But he did not give specifics of any government plan for them.
Chinda warned the militants who refused to accept the amnesty. According to him, soldiers would fish them out. On that note, he declared two of the cult leaders, Samuel Nkasiobi, aka Italian, and Okechukwu Amadi, aka Gunboat as enemies of the state for refusing to accept amnesty.
“We are all witnesses to what some misguided youths have done in Ikwerre LGA where people are predominantly farmers. Many could not farm because the militants are living in the forest where their farms are located,” Chinda said.
Speaking earlier, the Caretaker Committee Chairman of Ikwerre LGA, Mr. Samuel Nwanosike, said that with the repentance of the cult members, farmers would be free to work on their farms.
He added that the two cult leaders, who refused to accept the state government’s amnesty, would be declared wanted after a week and the sum of N10m would be paid to anybody with information on their whereabouts.
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