‘I needed money to travel home for Christmas’ - Robbery suspect

isaac dachen

November 25, 2016 1:16 PM

An armed robbery suspect who was arrested in Ogun State says he needed money to travel to his village to enjoy the Christmas.

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The 23-year-old suspect, Tochukwu Jikoye, a commercial bus driver, added that he wanted to make N400, 000 from robbery which he would have used to be a big boy in the village.

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Jikoye was arrested alongside his gang members, Obinna Mbam, a 29-year-old factory worker and a commercial motorcyclist, Abdullahi Hamid, after they robbed motorists and diverted trucks loaded with goods along the Ijebu-Ode road.

Jikoye, the gang leader, narrated to the police that the gang used to place a log of wood on the road and once a motorist sights the stick, he or she would stop, come down from the vehicle to remove the log and they would jump out from the the bush, waving guns and robbing the victims.

On the robbery that led to his arrest, Jikoye said:

“We went to rob at Ogbere area and members of the Oodua Peoples’ Congress (OPC), started shooting at us. While escaping, we ran into the police; they also pursued and arrested us. Police said they arrested us with Pump Action rifles.

It’s not true! We use only locally-made rifles to operate. We used to block roads with sticks. Once a driver gets to the stick, he would be forced to halt.

If he steps out of the vehicle to remove the stick, we would rob him. The last vehicle we attempted to snatch before OPC men came after us was a Toyota Hiace (Hummer) bus, loaded with goods and passengers.

I was looking for money to travel to my village for the Christmas. We target roads after Ijebu-Ode. We usually block roads between the hours of 11 p.m. and midnight.

In my first operation, we robbed four occupants of a Toyota Camry car and collected their phones and money. We ordered them to lie face down. We collected N170,000 from them.

When we shared the money, I got N40,000. I kept getting N40,000 and N50,000 as my share after operations. I couldn’t save. I wanted to make N400,000. If I had made N400,000, I would have quit robbery."

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However, the police said that Jikoye and his gang has been responsible for most of the robbery attacks on motorists along the Ijebu-Ode, Lagos-Benin Highway and other roads in the South-West of the country.

isaac dachen