It reads...
Twenty-four-year-old Sherifat Bakare, is
a young lady one could describe at first glance as pretty. But as she
sat on the ground in front of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the Ogun
State Police Command in Abeokuta, one cannot but imagine how deadly she
might have been on operations with her robbery gang.
“I was hustling before Raji, my boyfriend, told me to join his gang,” Bakare began.
But when she was asked to elaborate on what she did as a “hustler,” she explained that she meant prostitution.
Bakare
in company with four other members of her gang, were apprehended on
Wednesday, May 21, 2014 by the men of Ogun State SARS, who had been on
their trail after receiving a tip-off about the gang’s plan.
It
all began a few weeks ago, Bakare narrated. She said another member of
the gang, Bola Onasile, (also in SARS custody) had approached her
boyfriend about the availability of N70m in a wealthy man’s house in
Joju area of Sango, Ogun State.
“I
have only gone on two operations with them. I don’t know him (Onasile)
well. I only know that he was the one who brought the job.
“Raji
gathered other members and they snatched a vehicle (a Nissan Quest)
around Iwo Road, Ibadan. We decided that the vehicle would be used for
the operation.
“The gang asked me to
sit in the front of the vehicle so that when we were stopped by
policemen on the way, being a woman in the front seat would make them
unsuspicious. But during the operation, the police cornered us and Raji
was shot dead.”
Bakare did not betray any emotions as she narrated how the operation went.
Asked if she smoked Indian hemp like other members of her gang, she said, “I have never tasted it, I only smoke cigarette.”
But when our correspondent asked about her parents, tears streamed down her face.
“I
am from Idofian in Kwara State. My father is late but my mother lives
in Ibadan. She has no idea I do this kind of job and she does not even
know I am in police custody.”
Bakare explained that she was a prostitute in Lekki where she was making up to N5,000 per day until about two years ago.
“I
was living with a security guard in a house at Osborne in Ikoyi. The
landlord of the house was out of the country. I was going from there to
‘hustle’ in Lekki every night.
“Raji
was a good helper to me. That was why I decided to leave prostitution
when he begged me. When he introduced me to armed robbery, I asked him
if there would be no problem and he assured me that there would be none.
When we started dating, I did not know he was an armed robber though.”
Asked
how much she was promised out of the N70m they were going to steal,
Bakare said whatever went to her late boyfriend would have accrued to
her as well.
The young lady said she
learnt photography when she dropped out of secondary school but had not
been able to practise the trade because she did not think she could make
much money from it.
During Saturday Punch’s
visit to the SARS office in Abeokuta, 36-year-old Onasile, who brought
the N70m job, was evasive when our correspondent asked him how he knew
about the money.
He later said that an acquaintance of his, a man named Tunde, informed him about the money.
Onasile
said, “Tunde is like a brother to me. He told me the man we were going
to rob was his relation. He said the man had N70m at home. I told him I
had no boys who could do the job. But he was always disturbing me about
getting a gang together to do the operation.
“Few
days later, I informed Raji about the operation and he told me he could
get boys for the job. We planned to sell the vehicle we snatched after
the operation but we did not know how police got to know about the
operation. Tunde ran away when the police were after us.”
Onasile
said he was a revenue collector for a local government council in Lagos
before he lost the job when a new chairman weeded out excess employees
from the council.
According to him,
he got a job as a site thug getting assignments from land grabbers once
in a while but the money was not coming as needed.
Meanwhile,
a gang of robbers, who specialised in snatching motorcycles have been
apprehended by the SARS in Ogun State after an under cover operation.
Paraded
alongside the suspects were the receipts, which they told the police
that they issued to buyers of the motorcycles they snatched from their
victims.
The Police Public Relations
Officer, Ogun State, Mr. Muyiwa Adejobi, said he believed that more
members of Bakare’s robbery gang were still out on the streets. He said
investigation was still ongoing to ensure that they did not escape
justice.
He said, “We are on their
trails. But we can assure the public that wherever they are, we will
hunt them down and apprehend them.
“In
the case of the gang who specialised in snatching motorcycles, our men
were able to track them down after we got a tip-off that one of them
wanted to purchase a gun.
“One of our
SARS operatives who posed as a potential seller told him the pistol was
N250,000 but the gang member said he could only afford N150,000.
“Criminals
should understand that it is not a joke when the Commissioner of
Police, Mr. Ikemefuna Okoye, says that crime would not be tolerated in
any part of the state. We mean it and will track down any criminal that
ventures into this state.”
The wives of the gang members were also arrested because they admitted that they knew their husbands were robbers.
Adejobi said the suspects would be charged to court as soon as possible.
Culled from Punch Ng