Bank robbery suspect arrested with AK 47, 86 bullets

Two men, Akiri-Kemepamini Wisdom and Diokoro Chinedu, suspected to be part of the deadly armed robbery gang that robbed two banks simultaneously in FESTAC Town area of Lagos State, on October 13, have been arrested by the state Police Command, reports the Punch.
It was that that Wisdom who is 32-year-old and Chinedu, were arested by the Igando Police Division along the LASU-Iba Road, with 86 bullets and an AK-49 rifle were recovered from them.
The gang numbering about 40, it was gathered, had stormed the area and struck the two banks with military precision, carting away millions of naira and killing a young mother and her child as well as some police officers.
According to the police, the suspects who were on an unregistered motorcycle, were arrested during a stop-and-search, while a third suspect, also on the motorcycle, escaped, and a search on a bag recovered from them revealed the ammunitions and the rifle, Nigerian Army cap, a T-shirt with the inscription, ‘Gallant Patrol’, and the sum of N134,675.Wisdom, who hails from the Ese Odo Local Government Area of Ondo State, said he and the runaway suspect were given an instruction by their boss, identified simply as TK, to take the bag to a man, whose name he claimed not to know.
“I am a fisherman. It was my friend, Kinikini, who carried the bag. We were told by our boss to deliver the bag to another man. I am an errand boy to the gang leader. He and his boys stay in the creeks. He has many guns and I do not know how many he uses for operation.
They usually give me about N4,000 for such delivery. Now that I have been arrested, I know I am dead because they will be trailing me thinking I have leaked their secrets to the police.”
The other suspect, Chinedu, an indigene of Imo State, however, denied being aware of the contents of the bag, saying he was just a victim of circumstances as he was just a commercial motorcyclist the men hired.
“I am an okada rider in Victory Estate, in the Iba area. I picked the two men around Monkey Village bus stop. They said I should take them to Iyana School. When we got there, they said I should take them to Igando.
On the way, we met policemen on stop-and-search. If I knew they had such weapons in their bag, I wouldn’t have stopped for the policemen, but I didn’t know what was in the bag. When the policemen asked them what was inside the bag, they couldn’t answer.
When one of the policemen touched the bag, he said what he touched felt like a gun. I told the policeman to hold them responsible because they owned the bag and that I was just an okada rider.
The police have searched my house but they didn’t find anything. I am innocent. If God should save me from this trouble, I will never ride okada again.”
The state Commissioner of Police, Fatai Owoseni, who paraded the suspects, said they were assisting the police with investigations.
“They actually attempted to drop the bag and run away, but they were arrested. One of them is an errand boy to the kingpin of the gang that carried out the bank robbery in FESTAC recently. He is helping us with our investigations.”