Posted by By Juliana Francis on
A 15-year-old girl was among the suspects held for robbery in commercial buses. She was used as a decoy to deceive unsuspecting passengers to board their bus.
...She's a member of One Chance gang but pretends to be holy
A 15-year-old girl was among the suspects held for robbery in commercial buses. She was used as a decoy to deceive unsuspecting passengers to board their bus.
The girl, Falitat Shituola, as investigations revealed, usually sat in the bus, putting on a white muslim hijab, pretending to be a pious sister, while she's actually a rogue.
She was a member of an eight-man gang arrested on May 20, at about 11pm, after attacking a couple in the Palmgrove area of Lagos, and dispossessing them of their wedding rings and handsets. She said she had already made up her mind to quit robbery but was compelled by a member of the gang, Wale Fetuga, 25, to go for the last operation. The operation proved to be her last indeed, as she found herself in police net.
Other members of the gang were identified as Segun Olajide, 32, Mustapha Balogun, 20, Nonso Aloka, 21, Abayomi Aro, 25 and Tunde Adeboye, 23. The leader of the gang, Emeka, escaped.
Falilat is the last child in a family of five. She stopped going to school after her mother, a garri seller, died and her father; a security man and a polygamist , couldn't send her to school. She joined the gang after she met Fatai and fell in love with him. She not only became his lover, but joined his gang, to facilitate robberies.
She said: ' If we carry passengers, one of the men will announce , ‘this is not a commercial bus, drop everything you have.' If somebody proved stubborn, Emeka will threaten the person, saying, bring that gun, but I have never seen the guns."
Even after she heard that Fatai died in Ibadan two weeks ago, she still continued with the gang.
Daily Sun learnt that a team of anti-robbery police men, attached to Shomolu Division, led by Sergeant Ossair Chukwuka, while on patrol, saw a frightened couple standing on the highway. They stopped and it was confirmed to them that they were robbed.
An eyewitness said: 'The police gave the robbers a chase, from Palmgrove to Ojota, old toll gate, Alapere, down to Third Mainland bridge and finally Gbagada. The robbers started throwing things out of the bus. When the team drew near, they shot at the rear tyre to make them halt. As one of them tried to escape, he was shot in the leg. A Nokia phone, wedding rings and one live cartridge were recovered. Emeka bolted with the bandits' guns and ammunition.
Segun Olajide, a member of the gang, who recently returned from the prison, said: ' I was arrested in Orile, in 2004, for One Chance. I was granted bail by the court in the sum of N5000."
He said he was struggling to raise some money for accommodation when Emeka came with the offer. He said: ' Emeka saw me at Ojuelegba, where I was working as a conductor. He invited me to join them. During operations, I acted as the conductor."
Another suspect, Abayomi Aroh, had been robbing for the past six years. He bought his bus from the proceeds he made from robberies. He claimed to have been introduced into the crime by one Femi, now in Spain.
Nonso Aloka is also Emeka's conductor. He usually sat in front of the bus, beside Emeka during operations. His job was to keep all the items seized from the victims before sharing.