16th December, 2011
A n ex-convict, Felix Umukoro and his cohorts, Saheed Rasheed and Anayo Sunday, have been arrested by the Special Anti Robbery Squad of the Lagos State Police Command, while preparing to go for a robbery operation in Ajangbadi area of the state.
The 28-year-old secondary school dropout, confessed to P.M.NEWS that he had spent three years and eight months in Kirikiri Maximum Prison and was released in 2009, adding that it was poverty that led him to armed robbry.
The Delta State indigene who alleged that he was lured into armed robbrey by a friend who now resides in South Africa, said the operation, before which he was arrested, will be his last if pardoned.
Speaking on what led him to Kirikiri, he said, “we were four in number and we boarded a bus going to Mile 2 at Iyana Iba. We robbed all the passengers in the bus of their valuables at gun point. When we alighted from the bus and the passengers started shouting: “thief, thief, thief” on us, we were arrested by the crowd and handed over to the police.
“I was later charged to court and sent to prison when i couldn’t meet the bail condition. I met my new gang at Alaba market where we used to smoke Indian hemp. It was there that a friend told us that he had a deal for us somewhere in Ajangbadi. “When we got to Peoples Bus stop, some distance from where we intend to rob, Ezuma asked us to wait, and that he would come and call us when it was time to strike.
“It was while waiting for Ezuma that we slept off where we were hiding and the police came to arrest us. In my first robbery operation, I was given N15,000 and in the second one N13,000 and a handset.
According to 32-year-old Rasheed, a father of two, who claims that he lives in the Republic of Cotonou, the double barrel pistol found on them was brought from Cotounou , adding that they have not used it for any operation before their arrest.
He said that he deals in the purchase and sale of aluminium and iron scraps before the Nigeria Customs ran him out of business after they seized his goods. He corroborated Umukoro’s claim that they were picked up by the police after they all slept off while preparing for an operation
Anayo Sunday, 21, who works as an off-loader at Alaba International market, pleaded for leniency, saying that it was temptation that led him to join the gang.
— Jamiu Yisa & Ayodeji Dedeigbo