At Oyo State Police Command headquarters, Eleyele, Ibadan, it was a
harvest of suspected criminals as it paraded suspects numbering 18. Among them
were suspected
members of two rival cult groups, Aye and Eye.
Though they were always at war, this time, crime allegedly endeared them
to one another as they claimed to have jointly participated in several robbery
operations. While speaking with Sunday Vanguard, the suspects confessed to the
robbery operations they organized together. One of them, Taye Shittu, who used
mask to cover his face, said he belonged to one of the cult groups and armed
robbery gang which had carried out several operations in the South-West. When
asked what a rifle was doing in his possession, he said, “I gave the rifle to
this my friend, Olorunkemi, and the police arrested me. I brought the gun from
Lagos State. I always use the gun whenever there was clash between our cult
groups, Aye and Eye.
After using the gun to fight cult battle, we used it to
rob at Mowe- Ibafo area of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. We (pointing to fellow
suspects) have robbed several times. I shoot but I have never killed anybody
and I have never been imprisoned. I just fire gunshots into the air to scare
our robbery victims. I have been smoking Indian hemp since I was 18 years old”.
Though he said it was the first time he robbed in Oyo State, when a policeman
who had interrogated him confronted him, he said he had been involved in
robbery operations in Ibadan, Lagos, Molete, Challenge and Olodo. “We usually
steal phones, laptops, money and we sell the phones at Sabo area of Ibadan and
other places. I was a commercial tricycle operator”, the suspect said.
According to him, he used charms during robbery operations for protection. “I
was nicknamed state machine by people not because I am notorious. My friends
just gave me the name. I live at Badagry, Lagos. I am a cult member and I
belong to Aye”, Shittu added. The state Commissioner of Police, Mr Abiodun
Odude, alleged that Shittu belonged to a gang of three members responsible for
the spate of robbery in some parts of Ogun and Oyo states. The gang, according
to Odude, had successfully attacked residents of Sanda community, Molete and
robbed them of their valuable property. A member of the gang was, however,
arrested while fleeing from the scene and a cut-to-size barrel gun was
recovered from him. Investigation by the police Special Anti-Robbery Squad led
to the arrest of two other members of the gang . Also paraded was a woman,
Alimat Kemi Mustapha, who was alleged to have impersonated by parading herself
as a police inspector.
The CP said the
suspect was arrested in police uniform with an inspector rank by the Owode-Ogbomoso
police division on December 15 after she allegedly fraudulently bought
electronics worth N6, 000 from one Vincent Nwachi at a shop located at Takie
Isale area of Ogbomoso with an assurance that she would pay through money
transfer. “Investigation revealed that the suspect was dismissed in 2007 but
she did not return police kits in her possession.
The suspect, before her
arrest, had been using the police uniform to obtain goods and services from
unsuspecting innocent members of the public, “ Odude said. Employee accused of
stealing six trucks, two cars Meanwhile, following a petition by the Chief
Executive Officer of Wang Shou Bo, a Chinese company, that six trucks and two
cars were stolen from the company, police detectives arrested three suspects,
Olaronbi Saheed, Abdulkareem Yusuf and Ibrahim Babankulu, all employees of the
company. The trucks were said to have been sold in Kaduna for N20m while one of
the cars was given to a yet-to-be identified pastor in Abuja. The trucks and
the two cars were recovered by the police.
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