A 42-year-old man who identified himself as Oji Okoro has been arrested by operatives of the Edo State Police Command for allegedly sodomising a 12-year-old boy.
Okoro was paraded alongside 15 other suspects for various offences, including alleged kidnapping, vandalism, staged kidnapping and unlawful possession of firearms.
Parading the suspects, the Command’s Public Relations Officer, Eno Ikoedem, said Okoro was arrested for allegedly committing an unnatural offence against the boy. 
“This man (Oji Okoro) committed an unnatural offence. He defiled a 12-year-old boy,” Ikoedem said.
Okoro, however, blamed the devil and drugs for his alleged action.
Also paraded were 26-year-old Donatus Martins and his friend for allegedly vandalising cables and equipment belonging to Africa Independent Television (AIT), Benin office.
The police spokesperson alleged that the suspects had vandalised equipment worth over N4 million from the office since it stopped operations.
However, Martins confessed that he and his friend had carried out the vandalism and sold the stolen items.
He said: “The first one was N75,000. We paid the bikeman N5,000. During the first operation, we stole three DVDs and three copper-wire cables. The second operation was N90,000, but the buyer gave us N70,000, so N20,000 was remaining. It was during the third operation that we were caught.”
Martins, who said he works as a bricklayer, added that whenever there was no construction job, he and his friend resorted to looking for iron and other materials to sell to buyers to make a living.
Also paraded was Chigozie Anthony, who allegedly lured a girl he met on TikTok to his house, kidnapped her and demanded N500,000 from her parents, which they reportedly paid before his arrest.
Anthony, however, denied the kidnapping allegation, claiming that the girl was his girlfriend and that they had both planned the act.
He said: “It was a plan between me and my girlfriend. We had been chatting for more than a month. She came to my place and told me that she wanted to do business. She said after the nursing training she was undergoing, she would need N800,000 and something. She will finish her nursing training next month.
“She then said that I should hide her so that her family would pay money. That was how I hid her and demanded N500,000, which her parents paid.”
Ajayi Godwin was also arrested and paraded for alleged unlawful possession of firearms in Auchi, while Akinla Lawrence and his friend were paraded for allegedly vandalising pipelines in the Okada axis of Ovia North-East Local Government Area of the state.
