Lagos Police nabs 2 robbers, recovers gun, loots

The operatives of Rapid Response Squad, RRS, of the Lagos State Police Command have arrested two armed robbers in two separate incidence in Ikotun and Olodi-Apapa areas of Lagos, Southwest Nigeria and recovered gun, jewellery, laptop and 18 mobiles phones from the robbers.

The robbers, Bashir Wasiu, 22, from Oyo State and Tunde Adedeji, 23, from Abeokuta, Ogun State were arrested at Olodi-Apapa, around 6:35 a.m. on Tuesday, 19 July, 2016 and Ikotun on Monday, 18 July, 2016 around 4:33 a.m. respectively.

Bashir had early Tuesday morning in company of his two other members, attacked one Viho Segun at his residence’s car park, snatched his documents, phones and N15,000 from him at gun point before leading him to his flat intending to collect more valuables from his family.

At the Viho’s flat, Bashir threatened to kill him in the presence of his children and wife if they failed to produce more valuables.

When the wife refused to surrender what they wanted, Bashir hit Viho’s head with the gun butt and beat the wife to pulp.

Explaining what happened, Viho stated: “When he started beating my wife, I summoned courage to engage him. As soon as we started fighting, his colleague took to his heel. He too tried to run but I held him and I called out to neighbours, seized his gun and just in the nick of time, RRS officers on patrol arrived and they arrested him.”

According to the suspect, “we have been monitoring Viho. We know he goes to work early in his car and we decided to ambush him. We were three, Michael and I followed him into his flat to collect more money while Joseph was monitoring the situation outside.

“The three of us met at a point near Boundary in Ajegunle. That was where we planned and set out for our operations. We operate early in the morning and late evening.”

For Tunde Adedeji, his 10-member robbery team invaded Muslim and Omotayo Streets, where they robbed all the occupants of the three buildings they targeted.

Two of the three buildings are in Muslim Street while the third building was in Omotayo Street. Over 25 robbery victims residing in the three buildings narrated their ordeals in the hands of the 10-man robbery gang when they besieged RRS headquarters at Alausa after reports got to them that RRS officials arrested one of the robbery suspects.

Most of the robbery victims sustained several machete cuts in their head and body. The robbery victims, who came to Alausa in three fully loaded commercial buses were invited one after the other to identify the suspect and also identify their belongings from the 18 mobile phones, trinkets and assorted jewellery, recovered from the suspect.

Explaining how they planned and carried out the robbery operation, Adedeji said: “at about 12:00 midnight on that fateful day, Sadiq, Sule, Ijoba, myself and six others whose names I don’t know met .and discussed about the robbery.

“I was invited to join the operation by Sadiq. We met at Ikotun Egbe. We discussed the plan and at around 2:00 a.m., we converged at Ikotun roundabout. The arms we used for the operation were cutlasses, wood and sticks. None of us had a gun. We used legs to break doors and took phones, jewellery, laptops from our victims”.

He disclosed further that: “all the recovered items in my hand were from the victims. Sule and I were coming from the operation around 4:00 a.m. when a local security man intercepted us. He collected Sule’s bag. We ran away just as he was opening the bag. But, I was later arrested by RRS officials of patrol after seeing the content of my bag.

“This was my second operation with the team. In June, we also robbed another house in Ikotun. We also took from them phones and money. We sell all what we took to one guy called ‘Tablet’. Sule normally called him on phone after the operation and we met him at Olugbede in Egbeda area”.

While Wasiu was transferred to the State Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS office in Ikeja, Adedeji was transferred to Ikotun Police Station along with the recovered items for further investigation.

Speaking on the robbery, the Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, SP Dolapo Badmos confirmed the arrest, adding that the police were not resting on their oars. She stressed that the Command would continue to work round the clock to reduce crime in the state.