The police said they have arrested one Ibrahim Adamu and Abdullahi Abdulwahab, naval and correctional service personnel, respectively, for alleged robbery and car snatching in Edo State.
The two accused persons were among the suspects paraded for various crimes by the Edo State Command of Nigeria Police on Tuesday. They were alleged to have snatched an unregistered C300 Mercedes Benz Car from the owner in Sapele, Delta State and also robbed him of N400,000.
Chidi Nwabuzor, a spokesperson of the police, who paraded the suspects, said they were arrested in Ekpoma, the administrative headquarters of Esan West Local Government Area, by a crack team of the command following credible information.
“The suspects were taking the vehicle to one Alhaji in Abuja for sale when they were arrested by the police in Ekpoma, Edo State. The suspects have made statements and claimed to be personnel of the Nigerian Navy and Correctional Service respectively”, Nwabuzor said.
The command’s image-maker added that the vehicle and military uniform were recovered from the suspects, and the accused will soon be charged in court.
Narrating his story, Ibrahim Adamu said: “I was recruited into the Navy in 2019. I worked in Lokoja before I was posted to Warri, Delta State. It was when I went on a course in Sapele that I got the mind to steal vehicles.
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“When I finished my course, Abdullahi told me that he wanted to visit me; when he came, I told him that there is work I want us to do that will bring money to us and he agreed. We chartered a tricycle from Warri to Sapele for the operation. As soon as we entered Sapele, we saw a vehicle without a license plate, we asked him to stop but he refused. We pursued him to a village where he finally stopped. And I told him we are taking him to our office for driving an unregistered vehicle and he pleaded that we should settle the matter there but we refused.
“I took over the steering from him and started driving but when we got to Oghara road, he asked how much he would offer us to settle the matter and I said N500,000 but he pleaded and transferred N400,000 to one Point of Sale (PoS) number in Abuja we gave him. The Point of Sale (PoS) later sent the money back to us”.
He said after transferring the money to them, they ordered him out of the vehicle and drove off, adding that they were on the road to Abuja to meet one Alhaji when the car broke down at a village in Edo State and after repairing the car to proceed to their destination, officers of the police accosted them.
According to him, “I knew Alhaji while I was in Lokoja, he used to buy cars in Lagos and I used my uniform to help him in escorting his car to Abuja to beat the security checkpoint.
Abdullahi, his accomplice, on his part, said this is his first time partaking in the robbery.
