Posted by By Akin Oyedele, Ibadan on
The Oyo State police command is now faced with the task of establishing the veracity of the claims by a 2002 highest scorer of the Universities Matriculation Examination, Adio Kolawole, that he is not an armed robber.
The Oyo State police command is now faced with the task of establishing the veracity of the claims by a 2002 highest scorer of the Universities Matriculation Examination, Adio Kolawole, that he is not an armed robber.
Kolawole and three members of his alleged gang were among the suspected criminals paraded by the Commissioner of Police at the state command, Mr. Bashiru Azeez, on Thursday in Ibadan.
The police boss alleged that Kolawole was the kingpin of the gang that had on many occasions tormented the University of Ibadan community, especially the female students.
In an interview with journalists, the alleged gang leader, however, insisted that he was not an armed robber, but a member of a cult group operating within the university campus.
Kolawole said he became a victim of circumstance after graduating from the UI, where he claimed to have studied Physiology from the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, with matriculation number 110782.
According to the CP, Kolawole and members of his alleged gang were caught with one revolver, three live ammunition, one dagger, one knife and one black belt at a bush path where they had ordered their victims to report.
He said that the suspects had earlier robbed some female students of valuables, but not satisfied with their loot, they ordered their victims, who reside on Carpenter Street, Agbowo, to report at the bush path with more valuables.
Azeez said that the suspects were rounded up when they ran into an ambush laid by the police at the meeting point.
Kolawole said he relapsed into the world of crime due to unbearable pressure mounted on him by some cultists when he enrolled at the UI.
He said, 'Because I led the UME exam of that year, they insisted that I should join them. I scored 320 when I sat for the UME in 2002.
'When the cultists knew about my brilliance, they started troubling me that I should join them. I reported to a policeman who, unknown to me, was the one bringing unsuspecting young ones into the Eiye Confraternity.
'It was not a thing I originally wanted to do. When I reported to him that a boy was troubling me, the policeman arrested him and then let him off the hook after 24 hours.
'I that reported the matter to him was held as a culprit and detained for three weeks. When I was eventually released, the cult leader boasted to me that nothing could happen to him and that if I did not join them, he would kill me.
'I was then forced to join the cult. But if I am pardoned, if they don't kill me, I hope to join the police to help reduce criminality.'
Although he claimed that he was not an armed robber, he said that he only forcibly collected handsets from some female undergraduates, which he had since returned to them.
Kolawole added that the gun found in his possession belonged to a friend who kept it with him when they left a party.