Posted by By Juliana Francis on
A professional pick-pocket, who had just been released from prison, is about to be sent back for snatching a lady's handbag in the Ikeja area of Lagos.
A professional pick-pocket, who had just been released from prison, is about to be sent back for snatching a lady's handbag in the Ikeja area of Lagos.
Banire Taiwo, according to detectives, had been caught over five times for pick-pocketing. He was also said to have just been released on March 18 and appears ready to go back to prison.
Taiwo told Daily Sun: "I saw a lady's handbag on a table, I snatched it and walked away." A police patrol team, led by one Inspector James Friday, sighted the ex-convict while he was fleeing with the bag and the woman was shouting. Police gave Taiwo a hot chase and ran him to the ground.
The victim, identified as Princess Benedicta on that fateful day of March 21, reportedly told policemen that she was sweeping her shop with her handbag on a table outside when Taiwo appeared from the blues and disappeared with it.
Before he was arrested by the patrol team, fast thinking Taiwo had quickly removed all the valuables in the handbag. The bag was collected from him empty, but recovered from his pocket were N4,000 and a handset.
Explaining to Daily Sun what led him to prison the first time, Taiwo said: "Somebody gave me a wheel barrow to work for him. I delivered about N150 everyday to him, I later sold the wheel barrow for N2,000."
Taiwo also said that though he spent five months in prison as punishment for selling his master's wheel barrow, no member of his family came to visit him once. He said: "I have a wife and two children. They were at Abeokuta for six months. They did not know whether I was alive or not. My wife didn't know that I was sent to prison."
Begging detectives not to send him back to prison, Taiwo said he stole Benedicta's handbag because he was hungry for food that has pepper, salt and oil in it.
"Please, don't let them send me back to prison, I hate that place, they give us food that has no pepper, salt or oil. I wanted to use the money in the handbag to eat food that has pepper. The warders use the money given to them for our feeding to enrich themselves", he said.
Asked why he didn't go straight home to Abeokuta after being released, Taiwo said he wanted his body to look fine before going home to see his wife and children. Detectives, however, claim that Taiwo had also said he wanted to wait in Lagos until he had a jeep.