Police nab armed robbery suspect posing as passenger with gang in Keke NAPEP

Etim Effiong

Police operatives attacked to Operation Puff Adder in Kogi State, have arrested a member of armed robbery syndicate, one Abdulmumini Momojimo, who allegedly uses tricycle (Keke NAPEP) to rob passengers within Lokoja and its environs.

The Police Public Relations Officer, Kogi State Command, DSP William Ovye Aya, in a statement on Friday, added that the suspect, with his gang members currently at large, robbed a passenger who boarded a tricycle from the Dumanis Church Junction, along Ganaja Road, to Ganaja on February 26 around 7 pm.

The statement read: “Immediately after the 200 Units Junction, one of the robbers, who posed as a passenger, covered the victim’s mouth, and put a knife on her neck while the gang dispossessed her of two Android phones, voter’s card, Automated Teller Machine (ATM) card and the sum of N10,000.

“Thereafter, they pushed her out of the tricycle and ran away. Immediately the victim stopped another approaching tricycle and narrated her ordeal to the rider, which made him offer to chase the robbers and raise the alarm.”

According to him, the police operatives, who were nearby, and the vigilante group members, went after the criminals.

He noted that when they sighted the police, the robbers abandoned their tricycle with registration number MPA 139 VC and escaped.

“After the tricycle was recovered to the police station, the police started intelligence-based investigation, which led them to the owner of the tricycle.

“The owner said that he gave the tricycle to a rider to use as a commercial means of generating income, out of which he used to be paid,” he said.

It was gathered that when the rider was called, he mentioned the arrested suspect as the one he gave the tricycle to operate.

This led the police to arrest Momojimo, and during interrogation, he opened that he was of the three gang members who operated on the day their victim was attacked and dispossessed of her valuables.

He stated how he and other gang members posed as passengers to operate at dusk or night-time.

He, however, denied being the one who drove on the day of the operation, saying that it was the driver employed by the tricycle owner who handled it on the day of the operation.

Commending Puff Adder operatives and members of the vigilante group for the breakthrough, the state Commissioner of Police, Ede Ayuba Ekpeji assured Kogi indigenes and residents of the command’s determination, in synergy with other security agencies, to ensure adequate security of lives and property in the state.

He directed the operatives to work towards arresting other members of the syndicate at large, adding that the arrested suspect would be charged to court on completion of investigation.