Angel:
How I robbed my gang members after operation
…I joined robbery after my husband left me with
N1000, went to Lagos
Juliana Francis
It’s certainly not every day one hears of a woman
taking to robbery like ducks to water. But that is what Precious Okoye, alias
Angel, did.
She, however, will be the first to tell you that
embracing robbery was never her intention, but she has to take care of her
children.
According to her, she used to have a husband, but
one day, the man just up and left for Lagos State, leaving her and the children
with just N1000.
The burden of taking care of the children then
rested on her 25-year-old shoulders. She became desperate. And desperate
situation calls for desperate measures.
Angel had not only gone to robbery operations, but
she had even gone as far as to cheat her partners in crime out of the money and
loot they robbed, keeping everything to herself.
Listen her; “I used to sell drugs at Rossrous Hotel.
I have three children. One day, my husband left us with N1000 and went to Lagos
State. I met Emeka and he promised to introduce me to a business. Emeka knew I was
poor. I followed them to a robbery operation. I followed them to a house at
Bolingo Road in Igurita. We stole generator, stabilizer, Home Theatre, Plasma
TV and Gotv decoder. The gang sold the Plasma TV for N20,000 and the DVD for
N2000. I was given N500. After the second operation, I asked Emeka to
allow me keep the things we stole for the gang. When he agreed, I took
them all and refused to give them. Emeka fought with me, but I didn’t
listen to him.”
Among the gang members is 22-year-old Oliver
Nwokocha. He was arrested for shooting a professional golfer during a robbery
operation. Nwokocha admitted shooting the victim identified as Usman Zabadi in
anger.
Nwokocha said: “We went to another house. The man in
that house ran into the kitchen and I followed him. He hit me with a gas cylinder and poured hot pot
of soup on me. I got angry and shot him. I didn’t know he died.”
Nwokocha is a member of a seven-man-gang of robbers,
including Angel.
The gang, during one of their robbery operations,
abducted a 13-year-old girl, raped her and still collected ransom from her
family before releasing her.
Nwokocha was arrested along with six other suspects,
Angel, Junior Nmeni, Emeka Iwuayawu, Victor Nwabusis, Sunny Nweke and Ezekiel
Ishaya,
The suspects were arrested by operatives of the
Inspector General of Police Special Intelligence Response Team, IRT, in
Port-Harcourt, Rivers State. The gang allegedly specialised in breaking and
entering people’s homes at night.
The gang’s waterloo started after they killed Zabadi
in his house on Poultry Road, Rukpokwu, Port Harcourt. After killing him, the
gang carted away television sets, two mobile phones and an Automatic Teller Machine
(ATM) Card.
Nwokocha was said to have sprayed Zabadi’s face with
bullet, leading to his death. According to the police, Nwokocha, armed with an
Automatic Pump Action Gun, opened fire after the deceased poured hot soup on
him.
A police source said: “The gang went on to rob
several other homes around Iguruta and Upper-Deck areas of Port-Harcourt, where
they dispossessed victims of cash and other valuables. The gang also kidnapped
and raped a 13-year-old girl during one of their operations and a ransom of
N200,000 was paid before she was released.”
Trouble dogged the gang members’ footsteps following
series of petitions to the IGP, Ibrahim Idris, by different victims.
A team of operatives led by a Superintendent of
Police (SP), Martins, was deployed to Rivers State. The team trailed the
suspects through late Zabadi’s wife ATM card, which the suspects had been using
to withdraw money.
The police source further said: “Images generated
from the ATM transactions were distributed among police informants around
Iguruta area of Port-Harcourt. One of the informants identified Oliver Nwokocha.
The suspect confessed to the crime during interrogations. He also assisted
police to catch other members of the gang.”
Nwokocha said: “I went into crime in January this
year. That was after my uncle was killed by some people in my community. The people that killed him
wanted to take over our land. The
killing of my uncle sparked a community fight. I went to my friend, Junior, who
has an Automatic Pump Action Gun. I used it in the fight. One day, Emeka told me that Junior wanted us
to go for a robbery. I took the gun to
Emeka and we met at Iguruta. Emeka and two others; Ifeanyi, and Victor, took me
to a house in Rukpokwu. While we were breaking into the house, the people in it started shouting Jesus! Jesus!”
The gang left that house and went to the next, which
was Zabadi’s apartment. It was there that Zabadi attacked Nwokocha and the
latter shot him on the face, killing him.
Nwokocha recalled: “ It was after I was arrested that
the police told me that the man I shot died. After that operation, I collected
one phone and sold it to someone. Emeka
took one of the television sets to his place. I had no intention of killing
that man.”
Junior Nmeni,
28, who is the owner of one of the guns
used by the gang, claimed that he was lured into robbery after he lost his job
and couldn’t take care of his pregnant wife.
His words: “I
was formerly a cleaner at the Port
Harcourt International Airport where I earned
N18,000. I joined the gang seven months ago because the company I worked
sacked me and things became very hard for my wife and I. There was a gun that belonged to my late
elder brother. I found the gun inside his ceiling. I gave the gun to Oliver,
who used it to rob and later killed somebody. When he returned the gun, he told
me what he had done. I decided to join him. We robbed a man and a woman at
Iguruta. I kidnapped and raped the woman’s sister. I kept the girl in my house for two days
before Emeka and I started demanding for
ransom. The woman paid us N200,000, and I got N23,000 as my share. The next
operation was at a hotel. We went with two guns.
“Elvis, a gang member, brought the second gun. It
was Sunny, another gang member that brought information about the hotel. We got N21000 from the hotel and three
phones. My last operation was at the
home of one Mr. Ogundun. Elvis was the person that brought the job,
but on the day we went to the house, we didn’t succeed because the man had a
gun and shot at Oliver. I haven’t made much money from the business before I
was arrested. I was hoping to raise
enough money from the business which I intended to use for my pregnant wife’s
delivery.”
Iwuayawu, 24, a primary school dropout, said: “My
late father was a native doctor and he didn’t bury his mother, who is also my
grandmother, before he died. My father drove me out of the house when my
mother, who is from Kogi State left him.
I went to Port-Harcourt to look for job. When I couldn’t find any job, I
went into a bush at Unmuji Farm Road, where I started selling Indian hemp. My
father fell sick and died, leaving me with the burden of burying him and my
grandmother. I had no money to take my father’s corpse to the mortuary. I
discovered that he sold all our landed properties before he died. While I was on this, I had a
fight with a man at St. Anthony Church in Upper-Deck Area of Port-Harcourt. I
was arrested and taken to prison where I spent six months. When I came out of
prison, I joined a friend, Ifeanyi, who I met in prison. We started snatching
people’s bags.
“I made some money from those robbery operations. I
used the money to bury my grandmother. I
then joined Ifeanyi to carry out more robberies hoping to raise more money,
with which to bury my father. Ifeanyi took me and two others to a house at
night. When we entered the house, we
heard a woman praying and shouting Jesus. We left that house and broke into another man’s house. We fired a shot and
collected TV sets and phones. I was
given one of the TV sets which I gave to Okoye. Okoye is a woman, who sells
Indian help at Rossons area of Port-Harcourt. She told me she has three
children and her husband had abandoned her.
She went on two other robbery operations with us, where we gave her all
the money we made and the items we looted.”
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