About 500 gang members in Rivers State’s Andoni Local Government Area who had been terrorizing the area have renounced cultism, surrendered their weaponry, and pledged to be good citizens.
According to Punch Newspapers, Job Nabiget, Chairman of the Andoni Area Traditional Rulers Council, together with other traditional rulers expressed joy that the community’s peace had been restored during the group’s oath-taking ceremony.
Andoni has been a hotspot of cultism, kidnapping, and other illegal activity in recent years.
Nabiget urged the repentant gang members not to return to crime after condemning it, while also promising to assist local government officials in ensuring they were engaged in meaningful work.
“They will not lay their arms and stay idle without doing anything. I will find companies and make those who are to be trained to get trained and those who are to work will work.
“So they can be meaningfully employed and have something to maintain themselves for them not to go back to that type of bad life they were living before in the bush,” he added.
Erastus Awortu, the Chairman of the Andoni Local Government Area, described the ceremony as the culmination of traditional rulers’ and his administration’s efforts to address the core causes of insecurity in the area.
Awortu said he has already approached some local businesses about hiring some of the repentant gang members.
“We will pass a bylaw prohibiting tree haunting and felling in Andoni LGA very soon,” the council boss said, adding that some of the youths will become forest guardians.
