Men of the Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences Unit (Taskforce) have arrested one okada robber, Yusuf Lammeed, who specialises in robbing members of the public across various parts of the state.
The chairman of the agency, CSP Shola Jejeloye, confirmed the arrest in a statement issued by the spokesperson, Gbadeyan Abdulraheem, on Sunday.
He said that the suspect, with two accomplices currently on the run, was arrested while trying to rob a lady, who stood at the bus-stop at Ikeja Along waiting for a bus at about 5:30 a.m on Friday.
“The lady, who screamed for help when approached by the suspects alerted the officers on patrol along that axis, which led to a hot pursuit where one of them fell from the bike and was apprehended.
“While confessing to the crime at the headquarters of the task force, the suspect revealed that he and his other gang members, tribunal and Abbey of Mushin, had been into the business for over six months.
“He disclosed that the ban on the operations of okada in the state had made the business a lot more difficult. But that they still carried out operations at intervals to steal phones and sell to their dealers in Mushin popularly known as Segun Scatter, Steven Memory, Kalimantan and Ejo.”
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Jejeloye said that the agency would do all within its power to ensure that crime would continually be made unprofitable for anyone still involved in it.
“Crime is not a career. We have made several efforts in the past and will intensify the efforts to ensure criminal elements in the state either flee from here or turn over a new leaf.
“We will be all out in 2023 to achieve our mandate of zero tolerance for criminality in the state.
The taskforce boss urged miscreants, traffic offenders, environmental offenders, car snatchers, burglars, pickpockets, one-chance operators, etc to have a rethink this year or they would have themselves to blame at the end of the day.
He appealed to residents to report criminal activities around them to the nearest police station or to the agency.
Jejeloye assured Lagosians that a crack team had been assigned to fish out the other gang members , who fled the scene of arrest and also apprehend the buyers of their loot.
According to the chairman, the suspect will be charged to court accordingly.
