Police in Ebonyi State said yesterday that they uncovered what they called the biggest bomb factory in the southeast operated by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its militia arm, Eastern Security Network (ESN).
The Command’s spokesman, Chris Anyanwu, said in a statement that the discovery was made in an operation in which two IPOB members were killed in a shootout.
Somebody said to be a commanded of the IPOB in the state was arrested, Anyanwu said.
“The invasion of the criminals’ den was necessitated by an earlier encounter between operatives of the Command’s Tactical Teams, sequel to credible information gathered that the hoodlums were operating with a Toyota Sienna bus which they robbed at gunpoint from the owner within Ishielu axis,” he said.
Anyanwu said one “Sunday Ubah aka Bongo, the state commander of the IPOB/ESN in Ebonyi State”, was arrested.
He said a few police officials sustained minor bullet wounds, adding that a team of military and Department of State Services (DSS) conducted a search on the houses of the suspects, leading to the recovery of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and items used in making such devices.
“The Police Bomb Expert in the Command described it as a complete bomb factory – the biggest in the Southeast; each of the hand grenades (first of its kind) is capable of causing colossal damage to buildings and mass killing of humans,” Anyanwu said.
Police said items recovered included: “30 pieces of IEDs using safety fuses primed in non-electric initiator/detonator, 63 wraps of super power 90mm gelatin, two solar prime 90mm gelatin, 16 Danger 90 gelatin, 20 Ideal power 90 gelatin 50mm, and 239 pieces of plain non-electric detonators, four long-range riot gunners, and police and military uniforms, among others.
Meanwhile, IPOB yesterday denied any involvement in the bomb attack on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) headquarters in Imo State on Monday morning.
The police had blamed the group for the attack, but IPOB’s Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, in a statement, said it had no reason to burn any INEC office.
“IPOB has no business or reason to burn any INEC office. Nigeria government and their police are behind those who burnt INEC office in Owerri. If they are not sponsoring the attacks, how come they haven’t done any public inquiry or extensive investigation on the attacks on INEC facilities?” Powerful said in the statement.