Tuesday’s massacre of 43 policemen and State Security Service (SSS) operatives who answered a distress call in the north-central state of Nassarawa was made possible by insider connivance, it has been revealed.

Information just coming in from Nassarawa and Abuja confirmed that a police officer serving with the Nassarawa State Police Command has been implicated in the death of the officers who killed Tuesday evening in an ambush near Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital by worshippers of a local deity called Ombatse.

The alleged saboteur, Corporal Haruna Joseph, has already been arrested and is now undergoing interrogation, according to police sources. He stands accused of leaking information about the invading joint police/SSS team to the religious militants, who consequently launched a surprise attack on the contingent. The death toll was initially put at 23 but Nassarawa State Governor, Alhaji Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, later said it had reached 43.

The massacre happened as a detachment of riot police and SSS men were on their way to the shrine of Ombatse, a deity of the Eggon people, at Alakyo, 10 kilometres from the Nasarawa State capital, according to the state Police Commissioner Abayomi Akeremale.

Akeremale told newsmen: “We decided at the state security council meeting, because of the frequent attacks on churches and mosques by this particular group, who are forcing people to swear an oath at the shrine, that we carry out an operation and arrest the perpetrators for prosecution lest it turns into a religious crisis. The people, some call them Ombatse, but they call themselves cultural people, ambushed our men and opened fire.”

•Photo: Nassarawa Compol Abayomi Akeremale.