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.
Source-Vanguard
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