Left: Felled
Mr. Toyin Obadina. Arrested suspects (right)
Members of a
notorious robbery gang that confessed to have killed the Deputy Editor of
Saturday Newswatch, Mr. Toyin Obadina, during an operation in Ikorodu area of
Lagos eight months ago, have been arrested by police in Lagos State.
One of the
robbers said their leader shot Obadina because the journalist struggled with
him.
It would be
recalled that the deceased was driving in his Toyota Yaris salon car, with
registration number AKD 701 CE, when he was attacked at Itoikin, Old Ijebu-Ode
Road at 1a.m, on his way home at Parafa area of Ikorodu.
He was rushed
to Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, where he was operated on,
but later died.
Obadina’s
murder was suspected to have been an assassination. But the suspects, who were
paraded before journalists at the command’s headquarters yesterday, said they never
knew the identity of their victim.
The Command’s
boss, Kayode Aderanti, said he received information that the gang was
converging on their hide-out at Mile 12 area, in preparation for an operation
last Friday.
He said:
“Based on the information, a team of crack detectives, led by the officer in
charge of Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, Abba Kyari, swung into action and
two suspected members of the gang, Ibrahim Adeokin and Babatunde Makinde, were
arrested.
“Immediate
search conducted on them led to the recovery of two cut-to-size locally-made
single barrelled short guns, with 12 rounds of live cartridges.
“During
interrogation, they confessed to belonging to a six-man robbery gang who has
been terrorising Lagos State and its environs. They also confessed to be
responsible for the killing of the owner of a Toyota Yaris car with
registration number AKD 701CE, which they snatched and later abandoned with the
corpse at Ikorodu.
“The victim
was later discovered to be Mr. Toyin Obadina, the Deputy Editor of Saturday
Newswatch. Their confession later led detectives to Ikorodu area where one
Festus Adeshina and Sunday Samuel were also arrested.
“They
mentioned Olasheun and Omo Alhaja, who are at large, as members of their gang,
while Oke and Benjamin, who they claimed were members of the gang, were killed
in a shoot-out with operatives of SARS at Mile 12 area.”
How we killed
Obadina —SUSPECT
One of the
suspects, Shina Festus, told journalists that he (Obadina) was shot dead by
their leader, whose identity he gave as Oke.
He said: “We
were coming from Imota, while he (Obadina) was going inward. On reaching a bad
spot, he slowed down and we blocked him with our vehicles: one in front and the
other behind.
“Four members
of the gang came down from the vehicles. While two of them positioned
themselves to wade off intruders, Oke and Benjamin went to the man in the car.
An argument ensued between Oke and the man, and Oke shot him dead.
“When one of
us asked Oke why he shot the motorist, he got angry and shot the gang member
for challenging his authority.
“At the end
of the operation, we collected his phone, laptop and some money we saw in the
car. When we got to our hideout, Oke told us that the man struggled with him.
“We did not
know the man was a journalist and my job is to drive the operational vehicle.”
I was about
to quit robbery, says suspect
Twenty-one
years old Shina, who still has a pending case of alleged robbery, revealed that
he had only gone on operation with members of the gang three times, and made
about N200,000.
The suspect
said he was arrested just when he wanted to quit robbery.
He said: “I
started thinking of quitting when Oke and Benjamin were killed by policemen
from SARS during a shootout.”
Aderanti said
the suspects would be charged to court, adding that effort was on to arrest
fleeing gang members of the gang.
He warned
criminals to turn a new leaf or leave Lagos State for good, adding that the
command was determined to hunt down criminals that come to Lagos.
Vanguard
the lesson is not to struggle or argued with an armed robber not worth losing ones life
ReplyDeleteRuthless bunch
ReplyDelete