The Adamawa State Police Command on Tuesday, March 19, paraded 58 people charged with various crimes.
Forty individuals among the suspects were identified as members of a young criminal group called the Shila Boys.
This gang primarily comprises teenage boys who engage in daylight robberies, targeting residents of the state capital, Yola, with knives, often aiming for cash and mobile phones.
The Adamawa State Commissioner of Police, Dankombo Morris, who paraded the suspects, said 11 of them were involved in kidnapping while seven were suspected highway robbers.
The CP said the Shila Boys were rounded up at Sambisa Forest, a forest near Yola named after the more widely known Sambisa Forest in Borno State.
“In a bid to checkmate their nefarious excesses, on the 16th of March 2024, the Command in collaboration with hunters, launched a coordinated operation at Sambisa Forest here in Adamawa State,” the Police commissioner said.
He explained that the Sambisa Forest in Yola is a safe haven for Shila Boys.
“During this raiding operation, about 40 Shila Boys were arrested and dangerous weapons recovered from them,” the police commissioner said
He also disclosed that on March 17, his command operatives and tactical teams who were on patrol, arrested five armed robbery gang members in Jimeta, Yola, after they robbed occupants of their vehicles from Taraba State.
According to the police boss also, on the 5th of this month, the Adamawa State Police Command arrested an armed gang of kidnappers at Ngurore, near Yola, after they had been terrorizing the community.
He said that in total, the arrests of the 40 Shila Boys, 11 suspected kidnappers, and seven suspected armed robbers were made by his officers and men within the past one month.
Exhibits seized from the suspects, according to him, include one Toyota Prado Jeep with registration number ABJ 344 HX; one Hummer bus with registration number RSH 79 FA; two AK-47 rifles; a leather of charms and rings, and two GSM phones.
