Police commissioner Olusegun Omosanyin has announced a disarmament operation in Biakpan and Etono communities in Biase LGA.

Mr Omosanyin disclosed this on Thursday in Calabar during an interview on the renewed hostility between the communities over a parcel of land.

The crisis between the communities has been unresolved for decades leading to fresh hostilities in the last three months.

The police chief said both communities had given the state and local government a lot of trouble, while they refused to honour the command invitation three times.

According to him, the state security adviser was in the communities more than four times to broker peace.

“The people of Biakpan claimed to have Supreme Court judgment that allows them to acquire Etono but that is not what we are talking about, it is the security breach that happens intermittently in these communities.

“Atimes, they would kidnap from either side, maybe injure their victims or even get them killed and I have warned them that the way they are going, they are pushing the government to the brink.

“We are going to move to both communities and disarm their gunmen. We have invited all the youth leaders and their assistants, none of them honoured our invitations and even vowed never to honour police invitations,” he said.

The police chief added that he had informed the elders of the communities to disarm and embrace peace.

He said the disarmament move would be a joint operation that would involve all the security agencies, including the military.

“I have told them that we would ensure that both communities are cordoned while we carry out our search to recover all those weapons they are being used to perpetrate wanton killings and crimes,” Mr Omosanyin said.

(NAN)