A fleeing suspected member of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB has been arrested by the Strike Team of the Lagos State Police Command, in Volks, along the Mile-Two/Badagry expressway, with an AK 47 rifle suspected to belong to the Police.
During preliminary investigation, the suspect, Jonathan Nweke, was discovered to be one of the suspects that escaped from the detention facility of the disbanded Special Anti Robbery Squad, in Ikeja, Lagos, during the EndSARS protest, last year.
The Police said he was fleeing from Anambra State to Ghana when he was arrested.
However, in this interview with Crime Guard, Nweke denied being an IPOB member but a member of the Arobaga confraternity.
According to him, “I swear, I am not an IPOB member. I am a bus driver and a member of the Arobaga cult group.
“Yes, the Police found a gun with me. But the gun does not belong to the Police. I stole it from cultists in Anambra state. The cultists were having a meeting. One of them carelessly left it and I picked it up and escaped. I am a cultist, Arobaga confraternity.
“I ran away with the gun from Anambra because I intended to sell it to any member of the Arobaga cult group in Lagos. I was on my way to sell it to one of them when the Police arrested me. I left Anambra state because of cult war.
“My intention was to sell the gun and use the money to travel to Ghana, to work for money and come back to Nigeria.
“I was once arrested for cultism and robbery in the Alaba area of Lagos. I didn’t use a gun in that operation but my colleagues did.
“We were transferred to the SARS office in Ikeja, where we met other suspects in detention. It was during the ENDSARS protest.
“One day, we did not hear the usual voices of policemen at the counter. One of us said all the SARS operatives had been directed to leave their offices.
“I was not the person that broke the cell. But I was later made to understand that some suspects tricked the station officer to open the cell . When he did, they attacked him and we all came out.
“We jumped the fence that night and trekked from Ikeja to Toll gate. Seven of us trekked from Ikeja to toll gate that night. I don’t know the direction others went.
“I saw a lorry heading for the East. I begged the driver to assist me. I told him I was a motor boy, that my vehicle broke down.
“I stayed in Anambra for eight months before deciding to come and sell the stolen gun in Lagos.
“If I had known, I would have remained in the east. This is the third time the Police have arrested me”, he said.
The suspect and others arrested for various criminal offences according to the Commissioner of Police, CP Hakeem Odumosu, would be charged to court.