Let my church members forgive me, cries General Overseer held for robbery

Pastor Ibikunle

Pastor Ibikunle Olanrewaju John, 37, is the General Overseer of ‘The Way of Joy’ church, located at the Ikotun Egbe area of Lagos State. He is among seven suspected robbers arrested over the robbery of Murtala Mohammed International Airport, which occurred on March 13, 2013.  Two policemen had been killed in that robbery and several citizens injured.

He has a sinking look on his face as he stared at all the swarming faces before him.   For long now, he had been living a double life; that of a robber by night and a minister of God by day.

Detectives investigating his involvement in the robbery alleged that he is the armourer to the gang and had partaken in a lot of robberies with the gang.

He confessed without batting an eyelid: “of course I used to mount pulpit and preach to congregation. All I can say right now is that members of my church should forgive me! I don’t keep guns for the gang. It’s Asiwaju that used to keep the guns in his farm.”

Other members of the gang are; Atoba Adeniyi, Ibrahim Abullahi, Kazeem Aderibigbe, Saheed Adekunle, Christian Joshua and Saheed Okunola.

The kingpin, identified as one Paul, was said to have been killed in shoot out with policemen at VGC area of Lekki, Lagos. Paul was killed with another member of his gang.

The gang of robbers were also said to be the same bandits, which attacked a Bureau De Change last year (2012) at the same airport, carting away dollars, valued at over N600 million on February 2012.

The Commissioner of Police, Prince Umar Manko said the suspects were caught after detectives attached to the Special Anti-robbery Squad (SARS), recovered the corpse of one of the slain robbers, identified as Teslim Okunola a.k.a Esho, and discovered some items on him. Those items were used to catch seven of the suspects now in police detention.

Items recovered from the suspects are; five AK47 rifles, four dynamites, two locally made pistols, 64 AK47 magazines, all loaded with 30 rounds, totaling, 1920 live ammunitions. There are also a Toyota Sienna space bus with registration number BDG918AG, two masks and some quantity of charms buried in an iron box and hidden in their hideout, deep inside the forest at Agoro Village in Odogbolu Local Government area of Ogun State.

Recalling that incident which occurred on March 13, on the turf of the airport command, Manko explained that  after the airport Commissioner of forwarded certain of the items recovered from the dead robber, Esho, SARS men had taken over the investigation, leading to success.

Manko added: “On March 13, at about 7:30pm, an incident happened, where robbers went to International Airport and killed two policemen. Those two policemen served at Apapa command. They went on official engagement and got killed by the bandits who came to rob the international airport. The robbers succeeded in wrecking havoc. But before he was killed, one of the policemen fought gallantly, killing one of the robbers (Esho). He also made sure that other members of the robbery gang were not able to take his corpse away. It was that corpse that led to the catching of the gang.

“These robbers are not based in Lagos. They’re from Ondo, Osun, Oyo and Ogun. They also attacked airport last year, making away with 2 million dollars, valued in Nigerian currency to be N600 million.

“All the suspects have confessed to the armed robbery at the airport and several other deadly robberies in Lagos, Ogun, Ondo and Kwara States. The robberies include such as the Oro First Bank/Union Bank armed robbery in Kwara State in January 2013. First Bank/Wema Bank armed robbery in Ikirun in Osun State on December 2012 and the Bullion Van armed robbery attack at Odogbolu junction along Lagos Ijebu-Ode Expressway in January 2013. They also confessed to the armed robbery attack at the Murtala Mohammed International in February 2012. Investigation is not yet concluded. We’re still looking for two other members of the gang.”

 Explaining his part in the gang, Pastor John said that he used to help them with, ‘oath taking.’ He however insisted that the oath was not to make the robbery successful, but that nobody should tell the leader of the gang, Paul, that they were about to embark on robbery of International Airport.

He said: “I have known Paul for year now. He used to come and meet me at my church. I initially, I didn’t know he was a robber, but he later confided in me. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t run to police and tell them. Paul is a wicked man. The only role I played was to make them take oath on the day they were going for the robbery that nobody should tell Paul about the robbery.

“When they came back from the robbery, they gave me N500, 000.

Ibrahim Abdullahi, who said he is an ex-convict,  frankly admitted to have been the person who gave the information to the gang on February 2012, on how the gang could attack the airport Bureau De Change and make away with whooping sum of money.  The information was solid. When the gang attacked, they went away with two million dollars.

He said: “I saw the Bureau De Change operators, wheeling money in wheelbarrows. It occurred to me that they were not even using policemen to guard this money. I told my friend Kazeem what he saw. He was the one who arranged for the attack. But I don’t know anything about this year robbery at the airport. After the last year robbery, they gave me N1.5 million, which I used to open a shop and started selling phone accessories.”

Adekunle Saheed said he was not a robber, but was forced to join the gang because he walked into his boss, Esho, planning robbery with his gang.  He used to work as one of the workers on Esho’s farm.

He said: “When I walked into them, my boss now told me that they needed me to do something for them. I had seen guns and I couldn’t say no. I asked what they wanted me do. They said I would have to drive them to airport. It was Pastor, who brought out something…it was a big gun, covered with something things and several needles. He said I should swear not to leak the secret of what I had seen. I took the oath.

“On the robbery day, we got to the airport by 6pm. I was asked to park at the car park, while Pastor went out to act as the look out. He was watching the road. Later I heard shootings. It was heavy. I lay on the ground. We escaped and got to Ijebu-Ode. They gave me N5000.”

Saheed Okunola, brother to Esho, who was killed in the airport robbery of March 13, 2013, vehemently denied being a robber. He said he was a tanker driver. According to him, he did not even know that his brother was a robber.

Okunola said: “Saheed Adekunle is my brother’s farm manager. He told us that my brother went out with a friend and since had not returned. We started looking for him. Saheed later called me that I should come and pick my brother’s car, which was with him. I had already collected the space wagon and was at home when policemen came to arrest me.”

Atoba Adeniyi confessed that he used to prepare charms for the gang whenever there was going to be a robbery operation.

He revealed that he was with gang last February 2012, when they attacked the international airport. His share of the loot was N450, 000 and in the robbery operation of March 13, 2013, he got N500, 000.