A man and his 10-year-old baboon were arrested by operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Lagos State Police Command for robbery penultimate Monday.
Twenty-seven-year-old Mohammed Nafiu and the ape named Miowu were arrested for conspiring with two others to snatch the sum of N230,000 from a man on his way from a branch of a first generation bank in Ogba, Lagos.
The suspects were said to have ridden in an unregistered Nisan Prima to a point beside the bank where they laid an ambush for the bank’s customers.
Upon sighting the victim, who was said to have kept the said sum in a nylon bag, they brought out the baboon and walked towards him. As the victim advanced, Nafiu allegedly directed it to attack him and collect the money from him.
Terrified by the sight of the approaching ape, the victim was said to have abandoned the nylon bag containing the money and ran for dear life. The baboon was said to have handed the money over to Nura and both of them ran towards their vehicle.
Unfortunately for Nura, some people who were watching the scene gave Nura and his ape a hot chase. Sensing danger, the two other suspects drove off and left them behind.
Fearing that he might be attacked by the irate mob, Nura reportedly ordered his baboon to attack them. Scared by the baboon’s cry, the crowd dispersed. They however blocked all the escape routes open to Nura and his ape.
As Nura contemplated the next thing to do, operatives of SARS arrived and ordered him to chain the baboon, after which both of them were arrested and taken to SARS headquarters in Lagos.
In his confessional statement, Nura described himself as an indigene of Gala Local Government Area, Kano State.
He said: “I was a farmer but later started selling native medicine in Kano. I relocated to Lagos for greener pastures because I believed there would be more customers here.”
He said he had bought the baboon when it was only 18 months old with the aim of making more money by entertaining potential customers with it. But he later hit on the idea of robbing people by harassing them with the ape.
Continuing, he said: “I later met a friend who also had a baboon and we started robbing people with the two baboons. We had earlier used a snake to rob a man of N2,000 in Ogba and he did not resist. We would point the head of the black snake to our victims and they would fret and surrender everything of value in their possession.
“We usually target people who are coming out from banks or traders who are going to the market with a lot of money. We also attack people when we get information that they are carrying big money. We have operated more than ten times in Lagos.
“We have carried out more than 10 operations but I would only be able to recall a few of them vividly. I trained the baboon to ensure that it carried out whatever instruction I gave to it perfectly. It has stayed with me for about 10 years.
In the first operation, I got N10,000 from a bag the baboon snatched from a woman. I gave the man who drove us the mandatory N1,000 for fuel. The fuel money is apart from the money the driver would charge before we went for an operation.
“At other times, we paid the driver N2,000. But in every case, we did not have to stay longer than 30 minutes, otherwise the driver would leave us and go. If the operation was not successful, we would not give driver anything. That was why he was at liberty to leave us once the time was up.”
Nura said he got N5,000 from the second operation, from which he paid the compulsory N1,000 to the driver. He said their targets included supermarkets and auto companies where people would usually go with huge sums.
He said the operation over which they were arrested was their biggest so far because it yielded about N230,000.
The Command’s spokesperson, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, said efforts were being made to get the rest of the gang members who were at large, including the second baboon.
He thanked the members of the public for alerting the police about the incident in good time.
