Five suspected cultists were shot dead in the early hours of Tuesday during a fierce gun battle with men of the Nigerian Army in Omoku, headquarters, Ogba Egbema Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers State.

General Officer Commanding (GOC) Six Division in Port Harcourt, Major General Kasimu Abdulkarim, confirmed the development.

He said five AK47 rifles had so far been recovered from hoodlums in the local government in the past two days.

He said the Army had recorded appreciable success in its bid to rid the local government of cultists and brigands. “We have recovered a total of five AK47 rifles from cultists in the area since January 1.”

Community sources said the Army responded to a distress call in Omoku on Tuesday night when the cultists stormed the town shooting sporadically.

It was gathered that the cultists had killed two young men before the soldiers closed in on them.

Guns turned in by cult members during an amnesty programme of the Rivers State government in November 2016

Major General Abdulkarim also said that corpses of two of the cultists recovered on Palace road in the area were displayed at the Police station in Omoku. The other three were found at the end of the battle with the soldiers.

The Army recently launched an operation to clean up the local government of hoodlums and brigands.

The GOC, Major General Abdulkarim said they had overwhelmed the hoodlums in the local government.

This is coming months after the State government launched an amnesty programme to allow members of different gangs and cult groups to turn in their guns.

After the programme, the State government said over 20,000 cultists in Rivers State gave up arms and subscribed to the state’s amnesty programme.

The figure was given in a report of the Rivers State Amnesty Committee submitted to the Governor, Mr Nyesom Wike.

It also stated that thousands of ammunition and explosives were recovered within 60 days of intense and sometimes dangerous work of disarming and enlisting thousands of cultists into the Rivers State Amnesty Programme. (Channels TV)

•Soldiers on security duty.