Five policemen lose rifle to mysterious motorcyclist

The Lagos State Police Command authority has ordered the immediate arrest and detention of five policemen who lost one of their AK47 rifles to a mysterious commercial motorbike rider.

The strange motorcyclist was said to have scaled a culvert at Mushin area of Lagos State, rushed to the back of the police van, snatched the rifle from one of the policemen,

ran back over the culvert, mounted a waiting motorbike and disappeared.

The police top hierarchy said the story of the policemen was incredible and ordered their arrest and detention. The incident happened around 7pm, while they were on routine patrol.

The policemen are; Inspector Ayuba Kehinde, Sergeant Obiora Chukwuka, Corporal Nuru Yusuf, Corporal Ita Agbom and Corporal Yusuf Omotayo.

The policemen are attached to ‘B’ Operations Traffic.

A police source said: “They were on patrol duty at Olosan, Mushin area when the incident happened. According to the story the Commissioner of Police, they were driving, in the patrol when someone grabbed the rifle from Corporal Yusuf Omotayo. The man jumped the culvert, mounts a waiting motorbike and zoomed off!”

The source continued: “Sergeant Obiora was the person driving. Yusuf Omotayo and Nuru Yusuf were at the back of the van. They said that the man grabbed the gun from Omotayo while the vehicle was on motion. Immediately it happened, Yusuf and Omotayo repeatedly hit the body of the van to alert Obiora, so that he would stop, but he didn’t hear them.”

When the van got to traffic light, it stopped. Omotayo and Yusuf jumped down and ran to tell Obiora and Kehinde, their team leader, what transpired.

Due to the heavy traffic, the team decided to take one-way in an attempt to catch the motorbike rider, but it was already too late.

Angry and scared, the team arrested a man who witnessed the snatching of the rifle.

It was gathered the police top hierarchy were baffled over how a lone man, unarmed, collected a rifle from four armed policemen.

Putting up a defence, Nuru Yusuf said he would have opened fire on the rifle grabber, but did not because it was a market place.