A member of a suspected three-man robbery gang has said that he only participated in six operations before he was arrested.
He also said he was under the influence of the alcohol and marijuana when he was arrested and tortured by local guards at Igando area of Lagos
Twenty-year-old Haruna Shakiru, a native of Abeokuta, Ogun State, said the substances emboldened him to challenge the guards at Ifelodun Bus Stop at about 5.30 am while the gang was returning from an operation.
The three-man gang was said to have been notorious for terrorising pedestrians, motorcyclists, motorists and other road users in new town, Egan and Ifelodun Bus Stop areas of the Lagos suburb.
Shakiru’s arrest by a vigilance group followed an operation his gang carried out at about 5.30 am on March 5 before he was handed over to Igando Police Station from where he was transferred to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Lagos State Police Command.
Recovered from the gang was a locally made pistol and one cartridge. The gang’s leader, identified simply as Kehinde, was in possession of another gun while the third suspect, identified simply as Yellow, escaped.
Narrating the events that led to his arrest, Shakiru said: “I was arrested where we had gone to snatch a motorcycle. We used to operate around New Town Bus Stop, Egan and Ifelodun Bus Stop every morning between 4.30 am and 5.30 am when people, particularly long distance travellers are rushing to beat traffic jams.
“Ours was a three-man gang and we operated with a motorcycle. The three of us would be on the motorcycle, looking for would be victims. The moment we saw the motorcycle we wanted to snatch, we would cross it and point a gun at the rider, asking him to come down.
“The moment he came down, one of us would take over the motorcycle and we would zoom off.
“We were also in the habit of snatching bags. Most of our victims were women and a few men carrying laptops, ipads and jewellery.”
Shakiru, the fourth in a family of five children, said his father was late “while my mother sells dry fish at Igando.
“I am a furniture maker with a workshop at Igando. I used to make N4,000 and N5,000 daily and used the money to buy clothes and take care of our last born.
“I was doing well before Kehinde introduced me to robbery at bus stops. He used to work as a vulcanizer.
“One day, he called me and said we should go to the bus stop to collect phones and money. He brought the two guns we operated with and took the lion’s share of the loot after every operation.
Shakiru also said the gang engaged in for four or five operations after he joined.
He said: “The first operation was at New Town Bus Stop. We used a bike to cross a trekking woman and collected her bag, which contained N7,000 and a phone. Kehinde gave me only N2,000.
“In the second operation at Obadore Bus Stop, we crossed a woman and collected her bag containing N10,000 and a phone. I got N3,000.
“The third operation occurred at Isuti Road where we got N12,000 and two phones, They gave me N4,000 and nothing from the sale of the phones.
“The fourth operation was at Igando area where a woman’s bag was snatched. We got N10,000 and two phones, out of which I got N3,000. The fifth operation was in the same Igando area where we got N8,000 and two phones, and I was given N2,500.
“The sixth operation was at Ifelodun where I was arrested by a vigilance group at about 5.30 am.”