Like the proverbial hunter that became hunted, an armed robbery
suspect has told how he narrowly escaped death in the hands of his
victim. A four-armed robbery gang had invaded the premises of a powerful
politician in Lagos. The incident got to the attention of the state
Commissioner of Police, Umar Manko who swiftly ordered the officer in
charge of the State Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) Abba Keyari to fish out
the hoodlums. The efforts of the police paid off as they arrested the
suspects. One of the suspects in an interview with Crimewatch denied
using gun to attack the politician.
He said: “Really, we attacked the man but the man was too strong to
defeat. We used pliers to break the kitchen window protector and gained
entry. We started packing his laptop, phones and other things.” “As we
were packing his things, the man woke up and grabbed me. He was too
strong for me to handle, so he started beating me. He did not stop at
hitting me, he also bit me.
His teeth were shaper than knife. He was biting me like a wounded
lion. In fact, that man is a lion. He is too powerful. As he was hitting
and biting me, I was shouting for help but my colleagues abandoned me.
“How I managed to escape, I cannot tell. I was half dead.
When I left the house. If the man had beaten me more than he did, I
would have died. He is too strong so, that is why I am saying no to the
claim by the police that we were armed, if we had a gun, we would have
fired him, rather we escaped from him.” Showing some wounds on his body,
he said, “look at my body, all the injuries were from the man. He even
injured me on my joystick. He beat me black and blue.”
On who owned the locally made pistol the police claimed they
recovered from him, he said: “I am not saying that I don’t have a gun at
home, I have but I don’t use it for robbery. I only use it to protect
myself at home. For that robbery, I swear to my ancestors, we did not
use gun that day.” His suspected accomplice, Sheidu Busari, who the
police named as the leader of the gang, corroborated Jimo’s story, “we
did not use gun that day but my friend Jimo has a gun, but we did not go
with it that fateful day. We only used big pliers to break through the
window.
We gained entry but when the man grabbed Jimo, and he was shouting
like a baby, I thought the man has stabbed him or had charmed him so I
took to my heels. I did not know it was ordinary biting that was scaring
Jimo. Jimo (Jamio) used to be strong that was why I was confused and
scared when he was crying like a baby.”
Busari who was just released from the prisons for the same armed
robbery, said “I was only sent to prison for buying a stolen phone but
my elder brother later bought my freedom with N200,000.” On why he went
back to crime he said, “don’t you know that Christmas is fast
approaching. I need money for Christmas so, when we got information that
the man we attacked was wealthy, I had no alternative than to go for
the robbery.”
He regretted that the operation was not all that successful. “I
swear, the robbery was a bad one. We did not make money, yet, it brought
another trouble to me. See now, I will be spending the Christmas in the
prison.” Lagos State police spokesperson, Ngozi Braide, said one
locally-made pistol with six rounds of live cartridges, one HP Laptop,
and one Nokia 200 were recovered from the suspects.
Source: Daily Sun
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