Daily Independent Online.
*
Tuesday, August 24, 2004.
Police parade
suspected illegal arm manufacturer
By Sola Shittu,
Reporter,
Ibadan
A 50-year-old man, Mr. Jacob Aderinlowo,
suspected to be an illegal dane gun manufacturer was on Monday paraded before
the press by the Oyo State Police Command, but the suspect insisted that he had
no dealing with armed robbers.
Aderinlowo, who is a blacksmith, said he
had been in the trade for over eight years after he was retrenched as a tanker
driver.
According to him, blacksmithery and the art
of gun making runs in his family and it was given to him by his father.
When Daily Independent visited his blacksmith
factory at Temidire Idi Osan in Ona Ara Local Government Area, Aderinlowo,
looking unruffled and unintimidated, took a team of reporters and policemen
round his vast investment, which include two fish ponds, yam farms, palm fruit
plantation, piggery and snail farm.
He dismissed the police allegation that he
was involved in illegal manufacturing of guns for criminals, saying he only
manufactured for his friends who were fellow hunters and expressed his
readiness to take the police to their houses.
“I am an hunter, my father was also
an hunter as well as blacksmith. I inherited this trade from him and when I was
sacked as tanker driver, I decided to take up blacksmith,” he said.
But the Assistant Commissioner of Police,
Mr. Mohammed Ladan, who led the media to the suspect’s house, said there
was no doubting the fact that those who bought guns from him were criminals.
He said the suspect has sold guns to about
50 people, which the police were still investigating.
“Police in Oyo State are doing very
well. During our interrogation, he brought us here and we are going to destroy
this place. What he is doing is illegal; he can only do that if he possesses a
license. He knows he has been doing an illegal thing for the past eight
years,” said Ladan.
Ladan expressed the readiness of the police
in flushing out criminals and urged the people to cooperate by giving useful
information to the police on suspected criminals.
“We don’t need to see you, we
don’t even need your address or identity, just pass the information to us
and we will work on it,” he said.
