By ALBERT AKPOR DONALD ARJI & ADA ONWUNALI

UNARGUABLY, the foundation of the Lagos State Police Command  experienced a major tremor for the first time on the hot afternoon of Sunday, September 9, 2012 when a gang of notorious armed robbers took the state by storm. The bandits were not just armed with  sophisticated weapons, they were equally clad in police uniforms, had police walkie-talkies with them while their get-away SUV vehicle was fitted with circuit camera.

With these, they mesmerized the police; intercepted radio messages and watched events as they unfolded behind them in their vehicle. Before their operation that ill-fated Sunday which witnessed the killing of three Police men and about four hapless persons, the dare devil armed robbers went round the state as if they were policemen on  patrol.

But when they finally settled for their target which were Bureaux  De Change in Oke-koto, Agege and Gbagada, the entire state  became a  theater of war.  The robbers released gun shots indiscriminately to ward off perceived enemies and this sent jitters into  the spines of a combined team of Special anti-robbery squad.

Curiously, the Inspector-General of Polcie, IGP MD Abubakar was in Lagos to commission automobiles donated to the Police Command by the state government and association of local government councils in the state.   The police boss who was  embarrassed by the ugly incident gave the Commissioner of Police, Umar Manko a two-week ultimatum within which to unearth perpetrators of the heinous crime.

Acting on his boss’s directive, CP Manko summoned his men to a crucial security meeting and consequently a matching order to his officers to get cracking.  And in less than two weeks after the carnage, the police went underground, snooping…and did not only crack the brains behind the dastardly act, they also uncovered mobile armouries of the bandits.

The armouries were fashioned in such a way that no unaided eye could have detected it except  through a tip-off.  The floors of  the two buses were cut open by the bandits and a false floor was constructed in the respective buses and  securely sealed with sophisticated arms and ammunition.

Before any operation, the mobile armouries would have had bags of beans and corns loaded  in the buses to cover the welded false floors and driven to a strategic location of the target area.  With the bags of cereals in the buses,  they outwitted security agents in all the states they operated.

The compound where Uche was living in with the two buses used as armouries. pix by Donald Arji

Meanwhile, before the September 9, 2012 raid in Lagos,the bandits had operated  in different banks in  Kogi, Edo, Delta,  Kwara and Ogun states, and raked in substantial amount of money.

Crime Guard   scooped that after the Lagos carnage,  three members of the gang including Uche had raided the home of an unnamed  UK-based Nigerian business man somewhere in Imude community, Otto-Awori Local Government area, a Lagos suburb.  Incidentally, the unnamed UK-based Nigerian business man happens to be the landlord to Uche who is one of the armed robbery kingpins.

It was gathered that a sister-in-law  (names withheld) to an unnamed agent who built the house for the London resident was Uche’s girl friend,and she unsuspectingly told him that the Londoner was coming into the country for the first time  to inspect his house built for him by  her brother-in-law and that he (the Londoner) would definitely come with large sums of money.

Unknown to the girl, her boyfriend and confidant is a notorious armed robber and even the buses that were parked in the compound had in them weapons of mass destruction.  When the Londoner arrived his house which had Uche as the only tenant, the gate was under lock and key but his generator was running;  fueling speculation that Uche was in,  perhaps fast asleep.  Both the Londoner and his  unnamed agent resolved to spend the night together in the latter’s house.

Narrating how his client was dispossessed of all that he brought into the country by Uche and his gang members, the unnamed agent said, “I did not know that Uche and my sister-in-law were going out in the first place neither did I suspect that he was a member of an armed robbery gang.

My client and I were always discussing issues on phone about his house which I was helping him to build and of course, in the presence of my sister-in-law.  I did not know that whatever we said she would replay it to Uche, her boyfriend.  So when the building was finished and my client was to come over to inspect it for the first time,  my sister-in-law was also privy to the conversation.  Even the day he arrived the country, I was shocked that my sister-in-law was with Uche who happens to be the only tenant in the whole building.

I think it was in a bid to get  details of my client’s movement that he invited my sister-in-law to his house.  While in Uche’s house my sister-in-law got a call from my wife that she should start coming back home that I  and my client were very close to the house and that  I will not be happy with her when I come back to discover that she was with Uche.

During that  conversation between my wife and her sister, Uche was listening with keen interest without her knowledge.  He even tried to force certain information out of her but that  resulted into an argument which made my sister-in-law to leave his house in anger.

As if I had a premonition of what was to happen,  while coming from the airport, I was very mindful of the route I took to ensure  that we were not trailed by anyone. So, instead of taking Oshodi which was nearer,  I took Iyana Ipaja to come to the house.”

Continuing, the unnamed agent said, “Later in the evening at about 11:30 pm when we arrived at  my client’s  house, the main entrance was locked; we knocked and knocked to no avail.  We noticed that Uche’s generator was running and so it was believed that he was inside, perhaps,  fast asleep.

Arms and ammunition buried in false floor of one of the buses

“After the fruitless knock, we decided to go over to my place and pass the night together.  We went to bed at about 1.30am .  But all I could remember was  that I was jolted from sleep at about 3:00am  by gun- wielding masked men ordering me to co-operate with them or get killed.

They assured that they may not hurt me nor any member of my family provided I cooperated.  Both my legs and hands were tied. They collected all the money which my client brought, about Euros 4,500, three phones made up of   i-phone 3,  i- phone 4, his two brand new laptops worth Euros 1000 each which he bought for me because he didn’t pay me for the job done, I just requested for a laptop.

They also took my wife’s two hundred thousand Naira for her business, her one hundred and twenty-six thousand Naira worth of recharge cards. So in all, what was stolen from us was worth almost N3m.”

Narrating how Uche became a tenant in that house, the unnamed agent said,   “Uche became a tenant in that house about two months ago, that is, a month after its completion.  When he came to rent his apartment, he claimed that he was a spare parts  seller and I did not doubt him because he showed his complimentary cards and that was what we filled in on the agreement sheet.  I never knew that I was dealing with a notorious armed robber.”

Continuing, he said, “After the robbery, accusing fingers were pointing at me and, of course, that was expected.  So I decided first and foremost, to report the case to the neighborhood watch in our area before going to the police.  The head of the vigilante asked  me some salient questions which almost swept me off balance, and it paid off at the long run.

“First,  what Alhaji Isiaka, the neighborhood watcher asked me was,  who and who were aware that my client was coming to Nigeria, and I remember not to have told anyone else except my wife and her sister who was always around during telephone conversation between me and my client.  Surprisingly, the man said he would start from there.  It is the result of that, that we are now seeing”

Crime Guard spoke with the neighborhood watcher and he has this to say:  “When I was contacted about the robbery  of the previous night, the first question I asked was;  who did he tell about the coming of his client and he said nobody except his wife and sister-in-law.

Then I asked that he should bring his sister-in-law first for interrogation. It was during my interaction with her that I discovered that she was dating one Uche who was aware of the landlord’s visit to Nigeria.   That was how I alerted the Officer-in charge of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, who came in and arrested Uche and the girl.  It was at SARS that Uche confessed to the crime and several other crimes.”

Crime Guard also scooped  that it was during intense interrogation that Uche later confessed that the two Volkswagen buses parked in the compound were their mobile armories.

In the mean time, it was revealed that Uche had bought a German Shepard puppy dog worth N100,000.00 from an unnamed neighbour to his gang member, Chinonso and as luck would have it, he brought the animal to Uche on a day the team of SARS were on a search of his apartment.  And when asked who Chinonso was, Uche did not waste time to tell the policemen that he was one of them.  And that was how Chinonso was equally rounded up.

The Policemen were later shocked to their marrows after they forced open the floors of the buses to discover that they were after all,  mobile armouries.