The Lagos State Police Command has arrested a gang of armed robbers who specialised in robbing traders and commuters in the early morning hours at the Iyana Oba and Badagry areas of Lagos.
Members of the four-man gang are Bode
Oladejo, who is said to be the ring leader, Christian Opene, Matthew
Nwachie, and a yet-to-be identified member, who the police said was
still at large.
Punch correspondent learnt that the police
received a tip-off about the gang, and the Commissioner of Police, Umar
Manko, directed the Special Anti-Robbery Squad team, led by Abba Kyari,
to go after them.
It was further learnt that the gang
members were arrested on Sunday, June 15, in the Ajegunle area of Lagos
after they had returned from an operation.
The gang, punch correspondent gathered,
had raided a house on Tona Eradiri Street, Ajegunle, the previous day
and dispossessed a man, Mr. Godwin Perebor, and two ladies of N285,000,
two Automated Teller Machine cards and their company’s Identity cards,
among other valuables.
It was learnt that the suspects told the
police that they usually went to people’s houses at night with weapons
such as guns and cutlasses to rob them. They also confessed to have been
preparing for another operation on the Sunday they were apprehended by
the police.
Twenty two-year-old Oladejo, who hails
from Oro, Kwara State, said, he took to armed robbery because of his
father’s irresponsible attitude at home which had also frustrated the
family.
He said, “Since I was 11, I have been
tearing people’s nets at night and breaking in to steal their property. I
started to do this because my father had been irresponsible at home.
Then, we were staying at Ikorodu, Lagos. “At a time, the landlord sent us out of
the house because my father did not pay up the rent. He travelled to
Ibadan. My mother stayed back in Ikorodu. I became a street boy, trying
to fend for myself. Since 2003, I have been robbing. It is all because
of my father’s irresponsible attitude.
“I was initially using machetes to rob
until I got a gun from one Monday. He sold the gun to me for N30,000. I
usually robbed around the Iyana Oba and Okokomaiko areas. But I came to
Ajegunle for an operation on that fateful day on the invitation of a
gang member, Christian.”
Oladejo also confessed that he made about N50,000 on each robbery operation he participated in with the gang.
The second member of the gang, Opene,
from Oghara, Delta State, said he invited the gang to rob Perebor, who
was also his co-tenant, because the latter offended him.
He said, “Godwin (Perebor) and I used to work in a factory in the past before I joined this gang.
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