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 penis. 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.
The Sun
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