A report indicates that the Army captain, who allegedly ordered soldiers on security check-point along the Ibi-Jalingo expressway, in Taraba State, to attack and kill police operatives attached to the Inspector General of Police Special Intelligence Response Team (IGP-IRT), has been identified.
According to the report, police investigation carried out so far has revealed that telephone conversations between the kidnap kingpin, Alhaji Hamisu Balla, alias Wadume, and the Army captain, were about 191 within the space of one month between July 9 and August 6.
A source quoted in the report, explained that the police authorities believed that the Army officer might had been providing cover for the kidnapper, who was said to have received hundreds of millions of Naira as ransom from his victims.
The Army captain, who is currently undergoing interrogation at the Defence Headquarters, in Abuja, was arrested alongside five other Army personnel, who were alleged to have taken part in the horrific killing of the three policemen and their two civilian agents.
The arrested soldiers had confessed that they received orders to attack the policemen from the captain, whom they said informed them that Wadume had been kidnapped and was being transported in a silver-coloured Toyota Hiace Bus.
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The soldiers claimed that they acted squarely on the orders of the Army captain, being their superior officer, but police sources at the Force Headquarters, in Abuja, disclosed that the police authorities had established strong links between the Army captain and the notorious kidnapper, alleging that the army captain was on the kidnapper’s payroll.
Investigations have also revealed that the Army captain, who was not present in Ibi town at the time the IRT operatives arrested Wadume, might have ordered his men to attack and kill the IRT operatives as well as rescue his friend, the kidnapper.
