Juliana Francis
 |
| IGP, Mohammed Adamu |
Operatives of the Inspector-General of
Police Special Intelligence Response Team (IRT) have arrested four suspected
robbers, who used to pose as cab drivers in order to rob unsuspecting
passengers.
The suspects, who are presently in IRT
custody, have been identified as Didi Jolly, Chisom Unegbu, Michael Matthew and
George Ala. The suspects were arrested in covert operation led by head of IRT,
a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Mr Abba Kyari.
The first to be arrested was Jolly, who
was then used as bait to catch other members of the gang. Indeed, Jolly led IRT
Operatives from its Rivers State Annex Office, where the three other suspects
were arrested.
A police source said: “The gang’s modus operandi
is to recruit taxi operators as members. They’ll pick unsuspecting victims from
various bus stops, rob and then push them out of the cab. They also used to detain
their victims while withdrawing money from their accounts. Three among the
suspects are members of the Icelander Cult Group and were uninitiated while in
Junior Secondary School.”
Jolly, from Obugbasa Local Government Ares
in Cross River, said he and his siblings lived with his parents in Port
Harcourt. The suspect, who said that he dropped out in Junior Secondary School,
disclosed that it was quite common to see students belonging to one cult group
or another.
According to him, his school father
initiated him into the cult group when he was just 14-year-old.
Remembering how he was initiated, Jolly
said: “It was during our lunch break at school. My school father took me to an
uncompleted building behind our school under the excuse that we were going to
buy snacks. When we got there, he sent me to buy a bottle of squadron, an
alcoholic drink. When I came back, I met many boys there, especially our senior
students. The senior students pulled off my shirt and beat me. When they were
through with me, they forced me to drink from the bottle of squadron. They said
I had become a member, and failure to abide by their rules would result in
death. I was afraid and wanted to tell my parents, but I kept remembering their
threats. My mum is a religious woman and did her best to train us well.”
Jolly said that in the streets, almost every
boy was a cultist. He said that his mother had repeatedly warned him and his
siblings never to take to cultism, that she wouldn’t tolerant it.
Jolly was in dilemma; he was scared of
both his mother and the cult boys. He decided to keep his membership a secret
from his mother, but some months later, something happened.
He said: “I kept everything secret until
some months later when about 50 boys, members of our cult group visited my
house at night. I was supposed to be on
duty that day but because I was still living with my parents there was no way I
could sneak out. Normally, we take turns to watch over our area in case another
rival cult group decides to attack. My members came and forced me to follow
them, threatening to deal with my family members if they didn’t allow me to
work for them. I can still remember that night, how my mother cried while the
cultists dragged me away. When I returned in the morning, she told me that the
family had decided to relocate to Cross River that I should come along. I
refused and everyone left, including my father and my twin brother. I managed
to hang around school for a year before I dropped out. I was homeless and
struggling to survive. I became active as a cultist. It is normal for cult
members to go out to snatch bags and phones, which was what I started doing.”
In 2009, the cult group disbanded
following the Federal government amnesty programme. Jolly said that after the
group disbanded, he and a few members continued to meet in secret.
“Things were tough for me until I met
Gbongbon, who allowed me to live in his room. He was the one who introduced me
to armed robbery,” said Jolly.
He continued his narration: “Recently,
we concentrated on using cars to rob people. One of us will pretend to be a cab
driver. The driver, who is our partner, will pick one or two passengers. One or
two of us will also enter the car as passengers. We’ll then rob the genuine
passengers. We usually collect valuables from them, including phones. We sell
the phones at Yam Zone at Creek Road in Port Harcourt. We do not collect Iphone
because it has an I Cloud. We sell most of the expensive phones for as much as
N10, 000 and N15, 000. Our gang is not into kidnapping; we only snatch bags and
rob people. But if we pick someone who has money in his account, we detain such
a person until we’ve withdrawn enough money from his or her account. Right now,
I wish I had listened to my mother, who repeatedly begged me to relocate to
Calabar with her. If police release me, I’ll trek to Calabar to meet my mother,
if that will be my only option.”
Another suspect, Ala, from Bonny Island
in Rivers State, said that he was a student of Comprehensive High School, Borokiri,
but dropped out in JSS3 after the death of his mother. A year after his mother
died, his father died. He explained that he joined cultism before the demise of
his mother. His parents enlisted him as apprentice in carpentry and he goes for
it after school hours.
He recounted: “It was one of the
apprentices, who is also a student in my school that took me to the bush one
day and forced me to join cultism. My mother, who was then sick, pleaded with
me to stop cultism, that my life would be ruined. I promised her that I would
stop, but I just said that so her ill health wouldn’t worsen. Unfortunately,
she died and our neighbours took her to the cemetery for burial. My mother
never took my brother and I to her people or my father’s family. We were alone
and two months later, the landlord asked us to pack out of the apartment. We
started sleeping under the bridge or any place that homeless boys converge. In
the morning, we go out to beg for money in the street or do any casual job we
could do. Luckily, one woman, who heard our story decided to take my brother
home as a house boy. I stayed back and continued to mix with other boys. I was
there until one popular guy, Gbongbon, who used to give me N500 every other day,
asked me to go out with him out.”
Ala said that the day he went out with Gbongbon,
they snatched several bags. He went home with N5000 as his share of the
operation.
He said: “That was how I started
operating with Gbongbon, until he started the ‘One-Chance' business. My role in
the ‘One-Chance’ operation is to enter the cab, pretending to be one of the
passengers. I usually enter the cab, only after our targets had entered. Gbongbon
is the expert that makes arrangement for all the guns we use during operations.
We use the guns to scare people; the guns do not have bullets. I have sinned
against God and man, please forgive me.”
Unaegbu, from Ehite Mbaise in Imo State,
grew up in Rivers State. He was not a cultist, but his father abandoned him,
his siblings and mother.
He said: “We suffered a lot because the
money my mother made as an auxiliary nurse was not enough to take care of three
children. She asked my sister and I to drop out of school, so that our elder
brother could further his education. I learnt how to drive and gradually became
a taxi driver. I was able to get a car on hire purchase. I agreed with the
owner that I would be making N5000 delivery every day. I was struggling to meet
up with the target when my friend, Michael, suggested that there was a fast I
could make the money and pay off the owner of the car. Michael told me that my
role was to be the driver. We operate between 8pm and 9.30pm around Rummokuta. We
agreed in the gang that even if we didn’t make enough money during operation,
the gang would give me N5000, so that I could meet up with the daily delivery. This
was the only assurance that the car, which is a Toyota Camry, would become
mine. A lot of people preferred to enter private cars at Rummokuta, and they
pay at least N150 per drop. Since I joined them in January, I had lost count of
the number of people we robbed, but I can assure you that we didn’t kill
anyone. The guns are just to scare victims to submit everything they have on
them. I blame my father for my situation because if he didn’t abandon us, I
wouldn’t have become a criminal.”
For Matthew, he only joined cultism
because other guys were making fun of him for not belonging to any cult group.
His words: “I just decided to join them
and when I came home late; my mother checked my body and saw marks. It was
common in our area, so she knew what it was. She reported me to the community
head and I joined others in running away. This was how I ended up in the
streets, and I had to look for ways to survive.”
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