Suspect: I took to robbery after dad disowned me
A 20-year-old man, Fatayi Saka, has told detectives attached to the Lagos State Police Command that he took to robbery in order to survive after his father disowned him. He said: “After my father sent me away from home, I decided to come to Lagos. When I got to Lagos, I stopped at Mushin. It was the people that welcomed me at Mushin that introduced me into robbery. I was first taught how to snatch phones.” Other suspects arrested alongside Saka are Isa Lasisi, 20 and Samson Fabiyi 33. They were all arrested at Itire area of the metropolis. Saka further recounted: “After my mother separated from father, he used to look for the slightest reason to curse me.
When I couldn’t bear the curses anymore, I confronted and asked him to show me my real father. Before I knew what was happening, he had disowned me.” After he was allegedly driven out of his father’s home, he had nowhere to go to. He decided to travel from Ibadan to Lagos. He said: “It was when I was roaming the streets of Mushin that I came across Isa and Samson. They gladly accommodated me.
After feeding me for months, they said they couldn’t continue. They said that I had to do what they were doing. That was how they introduced me into robbery. Our style of robbery is to snatch exotic phones at gunpoint and later sell them.” Saka said that he and his two other friends were arrested at Itire when they went to rob one Mrs. Dorothy on April 23, of her Itel phone and N20, 000, around 8p.m. He said: “Immediately we collected the money and the phone, the woman screamed, attracting the attention of some youths. We were chased and caught. The phone and the money were recovered from us.
We received serious beaten and sustained injuries on our heads. In fact, it was policemen, who were on patrol that rescued us.” Narrating his own story, Lasisi said: “We formed our gang at Mushin and we don’t rob every day.
We choose the day we rob. We decided to go into robbery in order to survive. We collected the locally made gun we use for operation from our rival during a street fight in Mushin. We have not killed anybody since we started our operation. We only used the gun to threaten people, mostly women to collect their phones. I cannot go back home. I have disgraced my parents and my siblings.
They are aware I have been arrested for robbery.” Fabiyi, who said he was sorry, also asked his parents to forgive him. He refused to speak further with our correspondent. The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Imohimi Edgal, said the suspects would be charged to court after investigation.
