“My only regret is that I may not live to see my first child” – lamentation of arrested robbery suspect

They are seven in number; from different states and of different ages, skin color and heights. But they have one thing in common, robbery!They all grew up in Isolo area of Lagos, from where they formed a robbery gang which specialized in attacking workers and traders going to work early.

They later split with each forming his own gang but came again to continue advanced robbery by snatching motorcycles from where they were parked.
But like everything that has a beginning, the gang met its dead end following the death and subsequent arrest of all their members. Two suspected members of the gang were reportedly killed in a shoot-out with the Police during a robbery operation.
Another two, were reportedly arrested by policemen attached to Isolo division and transferred to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad earlier this year, forcing other members of the gang to go into hiding. They could only run but not hide, as two members of the gang are currently in Police custody.
The suspects identified themselves as Ifeanyi Uzigwe and Muslim Salami. Ifeanyi, 25, who hails from Orlu area of Imo state, opened up to Crime The Suspects
Guard ; disclosing how he joined the gang and their modus operandi. But he was quick to add that he had quit robbery last year after the death of his mother.



At a point, he kept quiet, shaking his head in self pity. And when he resumed talking, he expressed pity for his unborn child who is on the way.

“My operational name is Ifeanyi. But my real name is Uche. Yes, I was a robber but not any more. I stopped robbing last year after the death of my mother because on her death bed, she begged me to quit any dirty thing I was into , saying that was the only way I would make her happy even in death.

I was introduced into robbery by Peter, who is now dead. Before then, I was an agbero (tout) at Ishaga. I was selling ticket for commercial motorcyclists (okada). One day, Peter called me at a drinking joint around Isolo area and told me I could do better things with my life than selling tickets.

He too was an agbero (tout) but he said he was into other things. He told me that the only way to meet up with the financial challenges ahead of us was to have other means of generating income. But he did not spell out the kind of business.
He then called me one day to follow him out. That was when I knew what he was into snatching bags from people. At the end of that day, he gave me the sum of N4000. Again , he invited me and at the end, he gave me N5000. We were the only gang operating in Isolo area then.
We call our operation ‘stop and search’. What we do is to stop our bike in front of any of our victims, majority of whom are women. If the place is isolated, we will tell them to open their bags .If there is any reasonable thing, we will collect the bag from the person. But if there is nothing in the bag, we will tell the person to go. We usually threaten them with ‘gufer’(the gang’s name for gun).
We operated at night and early morning. At the end of the operation, we will take some of the stolen items to one man called Ibadan, who usually buys them. The gun we used is owned by Ibadan and at the end of any operation, we would give him N2000, or N3000 for lending the gun to us, depending on how well the operation went.”
The biblical saying that stolen water is sweet came to bear , as Ifeanyi was carried away by the amount of money he realized from the heinous crime.
Soon , he discovered he could make more money , by delving into a higher dimension of robbery. But to achieve this, he said he had to, firstly, dissociate himself from his mentor, Peter, who was not cut for his new line.
Continuing, he stated, “ I had to leave Peter to form my own gang. I then recruited one Kunle who is now in Kirikiri. What we did was to steal okada from where they are parked.
We snatched the first okada at Ire-akari bus-stop where it was parked and the second one was stolen from Aye bus-stop. At the end, we would sell them for N25,000, N30,000 or 40,000.
……arrested at last
“After my mum’s death last October, I decided to quit robbery. The first thing I did was to pack out of Isolo and went to live at Agbado Ijaye. I bought okada and started using it for commercial purposes. I also went into fashion designing and later got married. As I speak, my wife is pregnant.

“My regret now is that just when I decided to quit, I was arrested. If I had known it would come to this, I would not have come to Ikotun last Thursday. On getting to Cele bus-stop, I saw Muslim, who was a member of my gang, as a commercial motorcyclist.

I told him to take me to Ikotun, from where I would take another motorbike to Ijegun to see my brother. Barely had we embarked on the journey when some policemen stopped the bike and said they arrested Wasiu and Turkey who were members of my gang and have been looking for me.
I swear to God, I was not on a mission to rob that day. Ask the police if they found any gun on me. “Ah!”, he exclaimed, “is this how I am going to end my life? My regret is that I may not live to see my first child”, he lamented with a shaky voice, adding “and to say that all I used the money I got from robbery to do was only to buy clothes and to eat is the most regrettable thing.”
On his part, 22-year-old Muslim Salami, from Okitipupa area of Ondo state, the commercial motorcyclist who was conveying Ifeanyi to Ikotun, claimed he had also dropped robbery.
Asked if he had ever been a member of Ifeanyi’s gang, he replied, “ I will not tell you lies, I have gone on operations with him. I knew him when he was collecting ticket around Aye bus-stop.
I have gone on operations twice with them. On both cases, I drove the motorcycle. I got the sum of N5000 and N8000 respectively from both operations. We usually share it at the end of the ‘stop -and -search”, said the junior secondary school 1, drop out.