A TEENAGER and suspected leader of a 10-man robbery gang, Adeyanju Adebambo, and four other members of the said gang have been arrested by the police for allegedly robbing a female student of Senior High School, Okota in Isolo area of Lagos. Sixteen-year-old Adebambo, a native of Onitire community in Lagos, who claimed to be a tricycle operator, was arrested along with Kehinde Smith (18), Onyebuchi Okorie (18), Elijah Ojo (15) and Abiaka Samuel (18). Five other suspected members of the gang identified as Kehinde Senior, Solomon, Victor, Sako and Akeem, are, however, at large.
But Adebambo has denied being an armed robber, saying that he is an SS 1 student of Itire High School combining his studies with commercial tricycle business to fund his education and help his parents in the education of his younger ones.
He said: “I am not an armed robber. It was only one of us called Onyebuchi who robbed a female student of her Nokia phone. I was recruited by one Kehinde, a tailor and close friend, to go to Central High School, Okota to fight the boys who were claiming to be our superiors in the area and had wounded one of us.
“We had been fighting like that and the police would not arrest any of us because we never robbed anyone. After beating up our victims, we would quietly return home hoping and believing that no policeman would dare come after us. Otherwise, our parents would storm the police station to demand an explanation for our arrests. They have the phone numbers of senior police officers in Lagos who they would call and none of us would be detained. But up till now, none of our parents has come to ask why we were arrested.”
Adeyanju, who was caught with a charm, said the charm was given to him by a native doctor called Baba Rashida. But he believed that he was deceived by the said native doctor. “He said with the charm, I would never be arrested by the police, but here I am in police net. I will never trust a fake native doctor again,” he said.
Narrating his journey into police cell, he said: “I was sleeping in our house in the morning and Kehinde came and woke me up. He said we should go to the school to fight one Spako. I asked why and he said Spako threw a stone at Sunkanmi the previous day as we were returning from school and wounded him. He had agreed to pay me the sum of N1, 500, which is the sum I deliver to the owner of the tricycle on a daily basis.
“On getting there, I discovered that about 10 of us had been invited. And to my greatest surprise, it was not what we discussed about that they were doing. They started behaving like armed robbers, beating people and snatching phones and handbags.
“The robbery actions started when one of us, named Onyebuchi, collected a Nokia phone from a female student of the school. The girl’s cry that she had been robbed of her phone and the robber trying to kill her with a knife attracted the attention of other students who pursued us and caught us at Cele Bus Stop on the Mile 2-Oshodi Expressway.
“Some members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), who were loading buses at the junction, helped the students to arrest us and handed us over to the police in Okota. So, I am not the gang leader. I was hired to follow them.”
Asked why he thought their parents had not stormed the police station as expected, he said it was because the parents knew that robbery was involved. “Onyebuchi robbed the girl of her phone and beat her up,” he said.
On the charm that was found on him, he said Baba Rashida, who gave him the charm free of charge, was his cousin based in Sango-Ota, Ogun State. He said the only condition he gave him was that he should not eat any food cooked with palm oil or salt any time he wanted to go for an ‘operation’. He said the charm was meant to make it impossible for him to sustain wounds from bullets, dagger, sword or any dangerous weapon. “And if the person wearing the charm hits an opponent with a blow, the opponent will crumble like a pack of cards.
“I am not sure that the police would be able to catch him because of his charm. People know him as a great juju man. He is capable of disappearing when he senses danger. If he sees policemen, he will disappear. They call him the wind that cannot be trapped.”
Asked how much he got from the robbery operation that took place at the high school in Okota, he said he was not involved in the robbery.
He said: “It was Onyebuchi who robbed, I only got the N1,500 promised me, being the money I should deliver to the owner of the tricycle I work with. I did not know that my members were armed with dangerous weapons. Everything turned out like a film to me. I did not know that they would act like that.”
Another suspected member of the gang, Kehinde Smith, said he trained as a tailor, adding that he uses one of his mother’s rooms as a workshop.
He said: “I did not know that Onyebuchi would rob the school girl. I went there to fight and not to rob. I collected the knife I held from one small boy. When we got to the school, we waited till they closed. We were expecting the guy that wounded our friend, Sukanmi. His name is Spako. We wanted him to come out so that we would beat him up, but some of my members lost control, to the point that one of them named Onyebuchi started robbing people. He robbed a girl of her phone and her cry attracted other students who pursued us.
“I am not a robber. I can never rob. I went there to fight and not to rob. I am from a decent family. This is my third time of engaging in such a fight. It was Onyebuchi who brought us into this trouble.”
Onyebuchi, who claimed to be a native of Ebehigo community, Ngwaokwala, Imo State and a trained auto mechanic, however, said their mission to the school was not just to fight but also to rob.
He said: “They are all liars. We went there to fight but could also collect phones and money. Any of us could collect phones. It is because it was only one phone we had collected before they started pursuing us that they are telling lies against me. If we had not been pursued, they would have collected more than 10 phones.
“I did not go there with any knife. I collected the knife from the opposing side as we were fighting. Whenever we fight, we collect something from the enemies. When they are defeating us too, we would run and they would like to collect our phones, weapons and anything we came with.”
The fourth suspect, Elijah Ojo, a native of Awe village, Oyo State, who claimed to be a generator repairer, confessed to the crime, saying: “We usually fight and collect handsets. I will not follow them again, especially now that I know that our action is criminal.”
The fifth suspect, Abiaka Samuel, an indigene of Imo State, said he took exception to the phone that was collected. “We went there to fight and, all of a sudden, some of us started robbing. It was a big surprise to me. I would not have followed them if I knew that some of us are armed robbers,” he said.
Narrating his ordeal in the hands of the suspects, one of the victims, Taiwo Quadri (17), an SSS3 student of Central High School, Okota, said: “One of my junior ones, Tosin Bajela (15) and others were going home after school at about 1.30 pm when we suddenly saw some boys who were looking aggressive. One of them called the girl and ordered her to hand over her phone to him but the girl refused. He pointed his knife at her and forcibly removed the phone from her and ran away.
“One of our students saw him and ran after him. We pursued the thieves up to Cele Bus Stop where they attempted to run across the expressway, but some NURTW members saw them, apprehended them and took them to the policemen attached to an Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) at the bus stop.
“They later took them to Okota Police Station and handed them over to the Divisional Police Officer, a Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) Ibrahim Adamu, who addressed us and detained the suspects for investigation while we were asked to come back the following day to collect our phones.”
