Why we robbed our fellow students----UNILAG undergraduates

Detectives attached to the Lagos State Criminal Investigations Department (SCID), Panti Yaba, have arrested three University of Lagos undergraduates for attacking and robbing their fellow students in the campus.

The suspects, Henry Egene 22, Tayo Adekoya 26 and Michael Onwuameze 27, were arrested on January 25, 2016 about 5pm.

They were nabbed moments after dispossessing their colleagues of phones and money. They were escaping through the campus second gate when policemen and the school’s security guards grabbed them.

When the boys were arrested, phones and an axe were recovered from them.

One of them, Egene, a foundation student from Political Science Department, said: “I picked the axe at Makoko area after some hoodlums in the area fought. I took it to school without any motive in mind. I didn’t know what came over me that made me to use to rob other students. After my exam on that fateful day, I went to Sport Centre with my friends to relax. When we go there, I asked Michael to invite some of the students whom we met there to come and join us. They however refused. I stood up and ordered them to follow me. I brought out the axe and threatened to kill them if they didn’t handover their phones and money to me.”

Egene said that after robbing the students, he and his friends left for Makoko. He said they were leaving the campus with some of his friends when policemen and the school security guard attempted to grab them. They got others, but Egene escaped. He was arrested weeks after.

He added: “I don’t know how my parents will feel if they see me in this situation. It was my friends in the school who pushed me into the crime. I regret my action.”

Onwuameze, a 200 level Sociology Student said he was in the faculty when Egene came to call him. He showed him the axe, but didn’t tell what it was meant for.

He said: “I told Henry that we leave the faculty to a safer place to discuss what he wanted to use the axe for. He told me he got it from the scene of a fight. We thereafter moved to the Sport Centre, where we robbed some of our colleagues of their phones and money. On our way out of the school premises, we were arrested. I was given N1500 from the money we collected from the students.”

Adekoya, a 300 level Philosophy 300 level said: “I always hang around Biobaku Hostel. Whenever the students went to class to received lectures, I’ll break into their rooms and steal their foods and sometime their phones. I was about leaving the hostel when the security officer searched me and discovered three phones on me. He handed me over to the police.”