Two bus conductors in Lagos State, identified as 22-year-old Lateef Sodiq and Tunde Lawal, 21, have been arrested by men of the Lagos State Police Command after robbing a motorist of his Honda saloon car.
The two young men confessed to belong to a car-snatching gang operating in the state.
The suspects said they support their bus conductor’s work with robbery.
Sodiq told Punch that he was nabbed in a bus by men of the Alakara Police Division, Lagos, who were trailing him without his knowledge.
According to him, after concluding his conductor work on Wednesday, he went to join the other members of his gang and they snatched the Honda at Sabo area of Yaba, Lagos and dumped the driver of the vehicle at Obanikoro along Ikorodu Road.
Sodiq said, “We did not beat the owner of the vehicle, we just asked him for the security codes of the car.
“This is the second time I would follow the gang to snatch a vehicle. I was given N50,000 the first time my gang took me along on an operation. Our leader is called Coded. He has not been caught since he ran way.
“I have been an armed robber for just one month. I came to Lagos from my state, Kwara, last year when I could no longer stand the farming business my father forced me into when he could no longer sponsor me to school.
“Now, I really feel bad about what I have done. I regret my life now. By the grace of God, if I am released, I will run back to my village immediately.” Sodiq said he was not educated beyond primary school.
“When I finished primary six, my father did not have money for me to continue schooling,” he said.
Lawal on the other hand, said he saw robbery as an easy way to make money than his normal bus conducting work.
He said, “My work as a bus conductor is a tough job. that’s why I decided to join the robbery gang. But now, I know better, the problem in robbery is worse. I wish I can just be released to go back to my conductor business.”
Lawal further claimed that he was brought into the gang by Sodiq.
He said his duty in the gang was to ransack any vehicle they snatched and gathering every valuable found in such vehicles.
According to him, “I don’t hold a gun, all I did was gather money, phones and other valuables,” he said.
Lawal, who hails from Oyo State said he did not know other members of the gang except Sodiq.
He said the first operation he participated in, they were almost arrested when policemen were chasing them but they escaped.
Meanwhile, the Commissioner of Police in the state, Fatai Owoseni, has said efforts were being made to arrest other members of the gang.
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