Thirty
five-year-old Oboko, who has now been dismissed from the force, was recently
arrested in Port Harcourt, during a mop-up of criminal elements responsible for
incessant robberies and carjacking in the state by the Inspector-General of
Police Special Intelligence Response Team.
According
to him, the turning point for him was when he encountered two members of a
robbery and kidnapping gang, who were in the process of selling the cars they
got from one of their victims.
He
said in his statement, “In 2015, I met Johnpaul Amandi, one of our informants
when he took two vehicles he stole from one of his kidnapping victims to one
Victor Nwogu to sell. I met them while they were negotiating the price and I
told them I would join their operation.
“After
I became a member, I always found a way to get the members of the gang released
whenever they were arrested by the police. I am even the resident Pastor of
Battle Axe Assembly Church at Chuba Allo in Port Harcourt. I know this business
is evil and shouldn’t have joined but I could not resist the temptation.”
Oboko,
who chronicled his crime spree with the gang, admitted that he led three other
members of the gang to snatch a Toyota Camry at D-line area of Port Harcourt
few months ago, which his gang sold for N200,000. Out of the proceeds, he said
he got N70,000.
The
suspect said on their second operation, three of them stole three Toyota Camry
cars from the D-line motor park in Port Harcourt in a single day.
He
said, “Victor Nwogu in Owerri is the one that helped sell off the vehicles. He
gave us N360, 000 after selling the cars and I got N150, 000 as my share. I
remember that we also snatched a Toyota Corolla from Elelanwo area of Port
Harcourt.
“I
pointed a gun at the driver and he ran out of his vehicle. We sold that one for
N250,000 out of which I got a share of N80,000. There was a Toyota Spider we
also snatched at gunpoint around GRA in Port Harcourt. We hid it somewhere at
Borokiri Sand Field. But before we arrived there in the morning, the car had
been removed.”
Through
the confessions of other members of the gang, We learnt that Oboko
was also the armourer of his gang. Apart from that, he allegedly used his
police identity to give the members of the gang safe passage anytime they stole
or snatched a vehicle.
A
police source disclosed that in one of the robbery cases that Oboko
investigated as a policeman, he took two pistols away from the suspect, and
rather than file them as exhibits, he converted the guns to the use of his
gang.
The
arrest of Oboko came after weeks of tracking by IRT operatives, following
information given by Amandi who had earlier been apprehended.
Twenty-seven-year-old
Amandi, a Bayelsa State indigene, said he was a commercial bus driver before he
ventured into armed robbery specialising in car snatching.
He
said his gang was so good at snatching and stealing cars that on one single
night, his second operation after joining the robbery gang, they got five cars.
Explaining
how he met Oboko, he said, “Two friends of mine kidnapped a former local
government chairman in Bayelsa State and brought two cars taken from the man to
me to sell in Port Harcourt. When I was checking the cars in Nembe Waterside,
Corporal Oboko and one of his colleagues confronted us and took the cars away
from us. Instead of taking the vehicles to their station, they made it theirs.
“Three
months after that, he saw me on the road and asked me to forgive him and said
that he would like me to work with him. He took me to his boss at C4I and he
told him that I was highly resourceful and I could become an informant giving
the police information about armed robbers in the state.
“His
boss told me that if I could assist with information, I would be rewarded well
and I accepted. I even gave them information that led to the arrest of big
armed robbers in Port Harcourt from whom they recovered arms and ammunition.
“After
one month of being an informant, Corporal Oboko said one of the cars he took
from me was giving him trouble and he needed another car. He said he needed a
brand new car. I told him that I had stopped stealing cars since I had started
working with the car snatching gang, but he insisted. He then said I should not
worry and said that he would follow me to wherever I wanted to steal the car.
“On
our first outing together, we stole a Honda ‘End of Discussion’. He gave his
father the first car and started using the new one. He then encouraged that we
should go for more robberies because he had seen how easy the first operation
was. He also arranged with Victor in Owerri, who received and sold the vehicles
for us.”
Amandi
said he did many operations in the night with Oboko but that whenever he was
arrested, the policeman always came to his rescue by simply telling whoever had
arrested him that he was an informant working for the C4I.
But
it seemed car snatching in the night was not enough for Oboko.
Amadi
said he told him one day that he was tired of operating in the dead of the
night and said they needed to graduate to car snatching at gunpoint in broad
daylight.
He
said, “I thought Corporal Oboko was joking but few days after, he brought two
pistols to me. He said he bought the guns. We snatched many cars around Port
Harcourt, but even though we used to share the proceeds equally in the past, it
got to a time that he started to cheat me.
“He
would sometimes refuse to give me my own share and sometimes, he would not
involve me in an operation. He started bypassing me to work with other boys I
introduced to him. Not long after that, I was arrested and told the police
about him.”
The
police have said efforts are on to arrest other members of the gang, while
Oboko would be charged with armed robbery soon.
Source: The Punch
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