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| Armed robber Akeem Popoola worked for Police inspector Ijaya. |
Nigeria armed robbers affiliation stories with the Nigeria Police never ceases to amaze me.But this is the most sad one i have ever heard.It's sad because what happened to this young man Akeem Popoola could have easily happened to many Nigerian youths.I will explain.
Many Nigerian parents have in the past threatened their children with a night in the police cells to cool them off and see what life could be like in jail if they go down the wrong path.
Now imagine a young man,who is rascally,but not quite a thief.His father one day gets fed up with all his rascally ways,takes him to the police station,asks a top officer there to lock
him up for a couple of days to bring him to his senses.Now we all know how Nigerians believe there is black magic or Juju...The police officer then gets the boy into a tricky situation where he swears an oath.And bingo! He is now in the hands of the officer and he turns him into an armed robber! This is exactly what happened to this unfortunate young man and his father must hate himself for the day he took that boy to the police station.Read the sad story below...
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He said he worked for the inspector, Festus a.k.a Ijaya for about four months before his arrest.
According to Punch Metro, Akeem revealed that he collects phone from the inspector which he would later sell while the inspector and two other police men Abbey and Aluko will arrest the buyers and make them pay for their release.
The unsuspecting bictims pay between 120,000 to 150,000 to secure their arrest and he usually recieve 5,000 from each deal, Akeem said
Narrating how he started working for the inspector, he said “In November 2015, one of my father’s tenants and I fought. When my daddy came back home on that day, she reported me to him and he handed me over to Inspector Festus at the state police command headquarters, Ikeja. He told him I was too troublesome and wanted him to discipline me. But he (Ijaya) did not. He took me to a beer parlor at Alakuko and gave me N5,000. I was very surprised.
“Two days after, we met at another beer parlour around Agbado, where I was made to swear an oath. He brought out a gun and put some gin inside the barrel. He drank from it and gave me the gun to do same. He said he would be sending me on some errands. He gave me a mobile phone and drove me in his Toyota Camry to POWA complex in Ikeja.
“He told me to sell the phone inside the complex which I did for N20,000. After an hour, he handcuffed me and took me in his car with his boys – Abbey and Aluko – to the man that bought the phone. He arrested the man and told him to pay N200,000 if he did not want to be taken to the station. The man raised N150,000 among his friends in that complex and gave him.
“When we left there, he removed the handcuffs and gave me N5,000 and we departed.”
The Oke Ona, Abeokuta indigene said the second deal he had with Ijaya was an iPad he sold to another unsuspecting victim around Ikeja. He said he got a N5,000 share from the N150,000 bribe the inspector allegedly collected from the buyer, who was also accused of acquiring stolen property.
He added that when he decided to quit, Ijaya refused.
Akeem told Punch Metro that Ijaya threatened they had sworn an oath and that he would die if he backed out from the deal or revealed it to his father.
“Sometime in February, the inspector gave me a Techo phone which I sold to a guy at Agbado. The guy gave me N7,000 and a small phone. Thirty minutes later, we went back with my hands handcuffed. And as he normally did, he collected about N120,000 from him before he was released. I also got my N5,000 share. I can say all this in his presence,” he added.
The Oke Ona, Abeokuta indigene said the second deal he had with Ijaya was an iPad he sold to another unsuspecting victim around Ikeja. He said he got a N5,000 share from the N150,000 bribe the inspector allegedly collected from the buyer, who was also accused of acquiring stolen property.
He added that when he decided to quit, Ijaya refused.
Akeem told Punch Metro that Ijaya threatened they had sworn an oath and that he would die if he backed out from the deal or revealed it to his father.
“Sometime in February, the inspector gave me a Techo phone which I sold to a guy at Agbado. The guy gave me N7,000 and a small phone. Thirty minutes later, we went back with my hands handcuffed. And as he normally did, he collected about N120,000 from him before he was released. I also got my N5,000 share. I can say all this in his presence,” he added.
His father, Mr. Ahmed Popoola, who regretted handing him over to the policeman, said his son was a thief before he took him to Ijaya for discipline.
He said he strove to meet Akeem’s needs and had counselled him on several occasions to no avail.
“He had been stealing before I took him to a police friend, Yekini, who handed him over toIjaya with a belief that he (Akeem) will change if he sees the way thieves are being punished. He had been embarrassing me. He still has a case in the Sango-Ota division. I was arrested and detained because of him.
However the Police State Command has denied having any Inspector Festus or Ijaya