Police in clean sweep, parade 76 suspects in Lagos

The Lagos State Commissioner of police, CP Fatai Owoseni last Monday paraded over 76 suspected criminals for committing various offences in Lagos State and its environs.

This is sequel to the successful recue on Sunday of the three school girls abducted from Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary in Ikorodu last Monday night, as well as what the command called ‘the quick resolution’ of the Mile 12/Ajiliti crisis.

“The Nigeria Police Command wishes to inform members of the public that it made modest achievements in other areas also, besides the above incidents which ruptured the serenity of the state.

“We can assure the people of Lagos that the state is now relatively peaceful and safe,” CP Owoseni said.

The commissioner assured that “the strategies emplaced are being sustained and constantly reviewed with a view to denying them (the criminals) freedom of action and further stem the rate of crime.”

The suspects paraded include members of the notorious ‘Awawa’ cult group; another five-man robbery gang who specialise in car snatching; the notorious fake vehicle and plate number documents syndicate popularly known as ‘Oluwole Boys’ and other suspected armed robbers.

He stated that the police arrested 26 armed robbers, 50 suspected cultists and other suspects for various offences in the State.

He also said the police recovered firearms, live cartridges and vehicles of various makes and brands, among others.

Operators of the forgeries centre, the ‘Oluwole’ Boys paraded include Sakiru Atoyebi, Mojeed Ahmed, Akeem Adeyemi, Usman Olajide, Gbenga Olawole, Okanlawan Abdullahi and a female member, Sara Otun.

Items recovered from them include 5,000 pieces of forged General Trust Insurance company papers,

1,000 forged copies of Mutual Benefit Assurance papers, forged allocations and registration papers and over 2,000 copies of forged vehicle documents, plate numbers and rubber stamps.

The suspects were also found with 2,500 copies of forged Kano State Internal Revenue documents and many other fake documents.

Statistics of arrests and recovered valuables made during the period spanning 19th February to 7th March, 2016 and released by the Command include:

armed robbery suspects (26), suspected cultists, all Awawa Boys (50); robbery suspects killed (1); recovered fire arms (11); ammunition (49 live cartridges); vehicles (20); hideouts raided (981); number of hideouts screened out (113); cases in court (868); conviction (313); discharged (57); awaiting trial (298) and motorbikes impounded (720).

Owoseni thanked members of the public for their support and noted that crimes have reduced in the State due to operational strategy and quantum of logistics and moral support given to the command by the State government.

He said the police have intensified efforts to fish out all suspected criminal hide outs in the Lagos environment in cooperation and collaboration with other security agencies to reduce any form of crime and criminalities in the state.

Owoseni also said the police command has rolled out permanent phone numbers for each police division and area command in the state and called for the assistance of the public in providing adequate information to combat crime

In conclusion, the Command said the rate of crime and other criminalities has declined in the state and acknowledged that “it is worthy to place on record that the quantum of logistic and moral support given to the Command by the State Government has in no small measure contributed to the achievements recorded.”