THE saying that every day is for the thief but one day for the owner found expression in Anambra State recently with the arrest of some people suspected to be involved in car snatching.
One of the suspects arrested by men of the State Security Service (SSS) was 29-year-old Ukamaka Okafor, a native of Ijinike, Enugu State. Her arrest, she said, was all like a scene in a Nollywood movie. Amid tears, she confessed that she was lured from her fast food business on Presidential Road, Enugu into armed robbery by her fiance who was in jail over the same crime.
The dark complexioned lady was arrested by the SSS with two other suspects, Ugochukwu Okeke, a 38-year-old native of Osu village in Umunachi, and Isah Yusuf who hails from Maraban Jos in Kaduna State.
Okeke, who claimed to have worked as a driver before he had a squabble with his boss and had also worked as a carpenter, was nabbed by SSS men at Abatete, Idemili North Local Government Area, Anambra State on April 3, with the help of Abatete vigilance group.
He was said to have been involved in the snatching a red Toyota Highlander jeep with Anambra registration number HTE 335 AA. The said vehicle was said to belong to a South African-based prophetess, Victoria Nkiru Onuorah and was snatched from her at gunpoint on April 1, 2013 at Ichida, Anaocha Local Government Area.
However, investigation into how the gang intended to dispose of the vehicle took operatives of the command to Kaduna where Isah Yusuf (26) was also arrested. According to the Anambra State Director of (SSS), Mr. Alex Okeiyi, Yusuf was on standby to take the vehicle to one Alhaji Dogo in Sokoto.
According to Okeiyi, on getting to Sokoto, the said Alhaji was nowhere to be found. But enquiries made by the SSS revealed that members of his syndicate were responsible for taking such cars to Niger Republic where they are sold.
Okeiyi said the operatives returned to Enugu and called Ukamaka Okafor, who already had an arrangement with her prisoner fiance, Nonso Nwude, to collect the proceeds from the sale of the vehicle. Unknown to her, the people that had called her were security operatives. They arrested her as soon as she got to the location.
Narrating her plight to The Nation, Ukamaka, who sobbed continuously, said she never knew that her fiancé was an armed robber. But she admitted that she was the one who smuggled a mobile phone and SIM card to Nwude sometime in August 2012.
The handset and SIM card, she said, were hidden in some raw rice she sent to Nwude in prison.
She said: “On April 12, I was cooking in my shop when my fiancé sent me a text message from prison that I should rush to Shoprite to see the person who would give me money to prosecute my case. I left what I was doing and rushed to the site where I was arrested.
“My mother had warned me against marrying somebody who was in prison. It was a friend called Njideka who linked me with Nonso (Nwude) and his father in March 2012 after narrating what led him to prison. From there, I started sending him food in prison before this incident.”
Another suspected member of the syndicate, Ugochukwu Okeke, said he was lured into the gang by a friend he met at a mechanic workshop in February, 2012. Before then, he had been in prison custody for eight months before he was granted amnesty by the Chief Judge of Anambra State in 2011.
He said: “As I was repairing my Mercedes Benz car, which I bought for N100,000 given to me by my wife when I came out of prison, one man walked in and we started talking. He introduced himself as Oga Uche. From there, one thing led to another.”
The same Oga Uche had sold a rickety Honda Accord car to Okeke for N65,000; a development he said helped to cement their relationship.
“On Good Friday, he called me again and said he had a Camry car he wanted to sell for N800,000. I told him that I did not have money, but he said he would introduce me into another business.
“When he came around, he said we should hang out. He asked whether I could drive well and I said yes. We went out and saw this jeep and he said we should pursue it. We followed the jeep and snatched it from the woman at gunpoint and I drove it to my house.
“Before I was arrested, we had arranged how to dispose it for N1.2 million, I am now regretting my action.”
Yusuf said he was a brother-in-law to Alhaji Dogo, the alleged receiver of the goods stolen by the syndicate. Speaking in Hausa with the aid of an interpreter, Yusuf said: “I was at home when Alhaji Dogo called me on the phone, because he is marrying my sister. He told me that a visitor was coming.
“He told me that the visitor’s money had finished and that I should give them money at the hotel. On getting to the hotel, I did not see anybody. After waiting till evening, l left. But the following day, Alhaji called me that the visitor had arrived and that I should meet him at the car wash to collect some money.
“He described the car to me, but when I went there, I was arrested by SSS men. This is my first time in this business.”
But it was not only the alleged car snatchers that were arrested. Two other persons, Emmanuel Molokwu (21) from Umuota Udoaraba in Obosi community and Stanley Ndefo (20) from Umuota village in the same Obosi were also arrested by SSS operatives for armed robbery.
They were apprehended by the security operatives at Enugu-Agidi in Njikoka Local Government Area, Anambra State on April 6 after snatching a woman’s handbag at gunpoint close to UNIZIK Junction in Awka.
The suspects, according to Okeiyi, were intercepted by his men as they rode on a carter motorcycle with registration number VW 836 ENU clutching a brown female bag. He said in the course of the interception, the suspects abandoned their motorcycle and fled. They also abandoned a locally made double barrel pistol with six rounds of live ammunition.”
However, the command succeeded in tracing the owner of the bag, Jacinta Oge Onukaigbo, a civil servant.
In their confessions, the suspects told The Nation that they were a disgrace to their parents and communit
Stammering Molokwu said: “My parents do not know my whereabouts till now, and I am sorry for letting them down. Nobody expected this from me. If I come out of this, I will never try it again.”
He said it was his partner, Stanley Ndefo, who lured him into armed robbery after some drinking spree at a beer parlour in Obosi. He said Ndefo took him to an abandoned house and showed him a wrapped gun for the operation
But Ndefo denied introducing Molokwu to robbery, adding that both of them agreed to delve into the trade. He said he acquired the gun during the war between Obosi and Nkpor a couple of years back, having picked it up from the gutter.
He said his initial intention was not to use the gun for robbery but to sell it and get enough money to take him back to Abuja where he was working as a taxi driver.
“I am a disgrace to my family, especially my mother. I am now born again. I will never indulge in such a thing again,” he said.
