I failed to heed my mum’s advice against crime — One Chance suspect

A member of a One Chance robbery gang, Ajibola Alao, has blamed his involvement in armed robbery on stubbornness and refusal to heed his late mother’s advice.

The 29-year-old suspect was, a few days ago, arrested by operatives of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) of the Lagos State Police Command.

The suspect claimed that his late mother had warned him not to take what belonged to another person, but he turned a deaf ear to the warning.

The suspect and other members of the gang had last Thursday dispossessed a lone passenger in their operational vehicle of two mobile phones and N61 000 before he was arrested by the police.

The suspect, in company of the driver and conductor of their operational bus, a Volkswagen Transporter with registration number APP 820 XE, had picked up their passenger, Asotie Benedict, at Ladipo area, and he was to disembark at Oshodi.

But the suspect and his gang members did not stop at the designated place, but moved a distance before throwing their victim out of the moving vehicle.

According to the victim, “after throwing me out of the vehicle while on motion, the gang threw my N100 fare beside me on the road. But I didn’t give up; I chased the Danfo bus.”

“Fortunately, I sighted RRS Response 091 vehicle and quickly alerted the operatives who chased the vehicle to a halt. They arrested Alao who was the one who took all I had on me, but the driver and the conductor abandoned their vehicle and escaped”.

”All they took from me were found on Alao with some other phones, which he said were taken from previous victims.”

Alao, in his confessional statement, disclosed that he was one of a three-man one chance gang and that the two additional phones in his possession belonged to two previous victims of their operation in Oshodi.

According to the suspect, “I have been in the business of One Chance since 2015. At a point, I stopped and began pick-pocketing, joining buses to Sango, Agege, Oshodi, Apapa and disembarking whenever I had picked phones and money from commuters.

“At a time, I was arrested in Mushin Olosa Police station. My mother, who was very ill and on admission in the hospital at that time, was brought to see me in detention in a chartered car.”

“She pleaded with the officers and secured my bail. She warned me repeatedly never to take other people’s sweat, saying that if I had been using other peoples’ sweat to foot her hospital bills, I should stop it. She insisted that if I wanted to live long, I should stop stealing from people. She added that the consequences would be too severe for me if I go back again. Few weeks after the incident, she died”.

The image maker in charge of the state police command, Dolapo Badmos, confirmed the arrest of the suspect to Metro.