THE HUNT, SEARCH AND CAPTURE OF DERICO
Around May 2001, the Anambra State Police Command launched the Operation Derico which was aimed at capturing Derico and his gang members. There had been Operation Thunderbolt, Operation Abortion, Operation Cobra
and Operation Mimicry to capture other armed robbers, especially those based in the Umuleri-Aguleri axis of the state. The police had varying degrees of success with these operations but they were never able to lay their hands on the dreaded Derico. They were on a wild goose chase.
Governors of the predominantly Igbo southeastern states were fed up with the spiraling level of violence from armed robbery, kidnapping and ritual murders. They decided to launch their own paramilitary outfits that would provide adequate security to the people. These vigilante outfits were to work in collaboration with the police force. Thus came the Bakassi Boys. However, it was not a solely southeastern thingy. The southwest had their own Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), there was the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) in the north, Niger Delta Volunteers Force (NDVF), Ogoni Youth, Ijaw Youths and even the Egbesu Boys in Bayelsa. There was also the ruthless Mambilla Militia Group (aka Ashana No Case To Answer) in Taraba State. It was a time of near-anarchy. Not that it is all paradise now anyways (impunity still continues unabated in Nigeria with domestic terrorism spiraling out of control, as at the time of writing this, the kidnappers of the Nigerian President’s cousin turned down the sum of N30 million, calling it shikini money)..
Enjoying immense support from the local populace, the Bakassi Boys were at the forefront of the hunt and capture of Derico Nwamama. The violent and unbroken streak of Derico would come to a sudden but dramatic end on a Tuesday, the 3rd of July, 2001. He was captured by the much-dreaded Bakassi Boys, the militant wing of the Anambra Vigilante Services (AVS) in Onitsha, which happened to be his hometown. He was on the way to Onitsha from Agbor in Delta State.
Following the news of his capture, Onitsha erupted in joy and cheers. As the Bakassi Boys cruised and swerved round the city at neck-breaking speeds in their buses brandishing cutlasses, charms and all kinds of weapons, they were hailed as heroes and were treated to rapturous applauses wherever they went. Okada (motorcycle) riders, marketwomen, traders and school children trooped out onto the streets in their hundreds to celebrate the much-anticipated capture of the man who turned their nights into nightmares and their dreams into nibbly hopelessness. The police and Bakassi Boys had been combing everywhere for Derico for more than a year before he fell into the trap specifically laid for him.
Derico had killed over 100 people including 15 officers of the Nigerian Police whose lives he mercilessly wasted. He was a master of countless bus robberies and will not blink twice before pumping his hot lead bullets into the beating hearts of hapless victims. Before the coming of the Bakassi Boys, Derico sacked commercial banks in Onitsha carting away millions of naira of customer savings. What happened to those that he wrecked financially can only be imagined. And after his successful raids, he would boast and declare himself invincible. Derico seemed to have placed a lot of faith and confidence in the charms prepared for him by the traditional witchdoctors. According to reports, some of the charms were made inside some of the most well-known rivers in the state. He believed in the power of the amulets but eventually, the nakedness of his foolishness was laid bare.
In one of his last operations in June 2001, his daredevil gang descended upon the Achalla Police Station in Awka North Local Government with all the fury left in Hell. Nigerian policemen scampered off for dear lives while Derico and his team conducted a surgical operation on the police station. By the time they were gone, they went with seven police assault rifles. That particular operation was so dangerous that Derico did not go all alone with his gang, he called for collaboration with another gang from Umuleri. They were planning to rob a bank in Asaba, the Delta State capital and they needed heavy weapons to carry out their heist.
The Nigerian Police requested that Derico be handed over to them so they could continue with the investigation and eventual prosecution but the Bakassi Boys simply ignored the request, brushing it aside just as a Gbagura woman would the idea of a junior wife. For the Nigerian populace that was already (and is still) highly distrustful and suspicious of the Nigerian Police, their overwhelming support went straight to the Bakassi Boys. Some of them asked whether the Nigerian Police officers were on sedatives all the time Derico was terrorizing the whole state, killing and robbing as he desired. Many were in support of Derico being dispatched to the Hereafter as soon as possible and without wasting the fraction of a microsecond. But how was Derico nabbed?
The operations launched by the Nigerian Police were vast but the net did not catch the big fish. In one of the operations, six operatives from the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and Bakassi Boys left Awka, the Anambra State capital and headed for Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja, where Derico was based. They almost caught Derico but he escaped. Two of his deadliest lieutenants were however, arrested. Derico fled, abandoning his amazing cache of weapons, amulets and charms. With the heat on him, Derico scampered off and was on the way to his hometown, Onitsha. On getting to Agbor, where he maintained an armed robbery base, he alighted from the bus for a short stop-over. The Bakassi Boys got the wind of Derico’s movement and decide to ambush him. They mobilized at the end of the Niger Bridge which linked Asaba with Onitsha and stayed round the clock hoping to catch the very elusive Derico.
The beginning of the end for Derico was on a Tuesday night, the 3rd of July, 2001. Derico ran out of luck that very night at the Bridge Head (Niger Bridge) in Onitsha. He was on a commuter bus coming from Asaba in Delta State heading towards Onitsha when the vehicle ran into a checkpoint mounted by the Bakassi Boys. He was identified and arrested by the Bakassi Boys who stated that Derico was found with an ‘unspecified’ identity card that was reported to have been signed by a ‘highly-placed indigene of the state’. The name of the ‘influential’ figure was not mentioned.
THE END OF DERICO
Captured criminals were savagely beaten, mutilated, dismembered and even set on fire, all without trial. After heaping the…
