While most Nigerians were glued to their television and radio sets for the outcome of April 11th governorship election, some diehard crooks who decided to take advantage of the quiet evening to wreak havoc have met their waterloo.
Three armed robbery suspects, Uche Okeagbu, Emmanuel Ezeani and Chinonso Nwuangwu, who stormed the home of an Alaba International market-based hotelier and business mogul in the night of the election day, and carted away cash and other valuables, have been arrested by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, Lagos.
The April 11th armed robbery operation in the state left one policeman dead and scores of civilians wounded. The suspects were arrested at their Ajangbadi hideout on April 12th at about 4.30am following a tip-off.
The suspects were said to be members of a much larger group, which had about three weeks ago, carried out simultaneous robberies in Gbagada, Agege, Anthony, Ojodu, Itire, Ikeja and Ilasamaja areas of the state.
It was learnt that after 23-year-old Okeagbu was arrested, his confession led to the recovery of a large cache of ammunition, one rocket propel grenade launcher, 225 AK 47 magazines fully-loaded, over 10,000 rounds of AK 47 live ammunition, two general purpose machine guns, 260 rounds of GPMG live ammunition, five dynamites with detonator and nine AK 47 rifles.
A self-employed oil dealer before his foray into armed robbery, Okeagbu told our Correspondent that he was once based in Port Harcourt, River State capital.
He said, “I was an oil dealer in Port Harcourt before a friend introduced me to this gang. I have been with them for a while and during the time, I went with them for four operations in Ibadan where I got N500,000 as my share. Another was in Uyo where I got N800, 000. I also got N800, 000 for the First Bank robbery at Share, Kwara State and N100,000 for the Lagos robbery. All these took place this year.
“In all these operations, the targets were banks which we robbed successfully. I never went with the group into the banks. I always stayed back with the driver in the car because I was scared but I didn’t go with the gang when they raided Lagos three weeks ago.”
A SARS team led by, Mr. Abba Kyari, found the gang’s armoury in two Volkswagen buses with registration numbers LSD 467 AR and AGL 506 XB, parked at Okeagbu’s residence at Ajangbadi.
Also, Nwuangwu said he took part in four robbery operations at Diamond Bank, Akure, in Ondo State, UBA, Osogbo in Osun State, GTB Okene, in Kogi State and Skye Bank, Auchi, in Edo State.
The 23-year-old said, “I was merely the driver of the vehicles. I just drove them to where ever they had an operation. I used to be an oil dealer in Port Harcourt before I joined the gang but I have stopped going with them for operations for a while now.”
