By Esther Onyegbula
Last Wednesday, some suspects were paraded at the Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja over various offences ranging from robbery , rape and impersonation. To the astonishment of all, some people showed up at the command to identify some of the suspects as those who invaded their homes and dispossessed them of cash and other valuables. Among the victims was a lady who said but for providence she would have been gang raped by three of the suspects .
Suspects
The lady who gave her name as Precious Nwankwo, identified the trio of Balogun Mutiu( 32) Kuye Daniels( 24) and Fashola Adewunmi ( 32) as suspected members of the robbery gang that stormed her apartment in Iju area of the state. According to her : “I was asleep when the door of my apartment was forced opened .
I woke up in shock and quickly tied my wrapper . Before I could hide, these strangers (pointing to the suspects) barged in . One of them said they should waste me if I had no money to give to them. They took my hand bag which was on the bed, opened it and poured out everything on the bed and collected the money.
In my confusion, I ran inside the toilet inspite of warning from them not to do so. Two of them (Kuye Daniels and Fashola Adewunmi ) ran after me and threatened to rape me to death for disobeying their order. They were about to carry out their threat when their partner told them to leave for the next apartment . I recognized them because they were not masked . They collected N60, 000 from my bag and N5, 000 from my wallet, including two ATM cards, one infinix phone, one Nokia Lumia, one Tecno phone and one Nokia touch”, she said.
They snatched my car
Another victim who simply gave his name as Fedrick told a bewildered crownd at the command that he also fell victim of the robbers cruelty. He said he was at Climax hotel at Iju Shaga of the state , in the company of his wife when the robbers struck. He said : “They snacthed a car which broke down on the way. They came out of the car and made straight for the hotel. They collected the car key from me at gun point and drove off in my car. I dentified them by thier body smell.
My vehicle was however recovered later by men of the Rapid Response Squad. But the money inside, including my phone, wedding ring and wristwatch had been taken away”. A third victim, Peter, claimed that the suspects invaded his residence at Mile 12, last Thursday, where they carried out a room-to-room operation and dispossesed them of cash, phones and other valuables. Time was 2am. He identified one of them with the blue jean and ash coloured shirt he wore.
Peter said “ Immediately the robbers left , we alerted the Lagos State emergency department on thier telephone number 112 . when it was dawn, we reported the case at Alapere police division. To my surprise, I had a call from one of my stolen phones , only for the caller to identify himself as a policeman from Area ‘C’. They took two phones from me. But only the Asiha 303 was recovered while the Tecno Y6 was not.
Crime Alert gathered that when the distress calls was received, operatives of the Rapid Response Squad around the location barricaded all exit routes, thereby leading to the arrest of the suspects at Randle Avenue roundabout in Surulere. They were arrested in a stolen Toyota Corolla car with registration number AAA-239-BD.
Suspect’s account
However, one of the suspects, Balogun Mutiu, denied being an armed robber. He maintained that he was arrested on his way to his farm land by the police . He said “I told them I was on my way to the farm. They said a robbery operation just took place around that area . They took me and the rider of the motorcycle was on, to the police station. Later, these men; Kuye Daniels and Fashola Adewunmi were brought in . The police asked the Daniel and Fashola if they knew me and the okada rider they said no. They just want to send me to jail“, he said.
At that moment, one of the suspects , Kuye Daneils, (20) interjected , saying Mutiu was inside the stolen vehcile. According to him “Balogun Mutiu and Fashola Adewunmi, were inside the vehicle with Badoo when i joined them. I was arrested inside the car at Oshodi, I am not a member of the gang. The person that took me out that night is at large. I have not never gone on any operation with them . When they picked me, they said we were going to a carnival. I know one of them called Badoo. I am a cobbler. I am from Ondo state. I came from Ibafo to Lagos to celebrate the yuletide”, he said in tears.
Vanguard
