When a combined team of vigilance groups and policemen apprehended Sunday Orji and Emmanuel Adama, they had their defence. One of them said he is into armed robbery to get funds to erect a befitting structure for his family.
Sunday, 19 May, 2013, would not be forgotten in a hurry by inhabitants of Ejule community in Ofu Local Government Area of Kogi State, when the hilly town was almost turned into a theatre of war as police battled suspected armed robbers.
On the fateful day, policemen from the Nsukka Division of the Enugu State Command, acting on a tip off, chased suspected armed robbers through the neighbouring Ejule community.
The suspects, later captured and identified as Sunday Orji and Emmanuel Adama were reported to have snatched, at gun point, a Honda ODESSY car with registration number LAGOS EM 818 GGE.
It was reported that the two suspects had, on Saturday, May 18, 2013, pretending to be law enforcement agents, flagged down the owner of the car along Old Anglican Road, Nsukka.
Upon stopping for the seeming security personnel, Orji and Adama asked the vehicle owner to surrender all in his possession which the hapless man did.
The suspects also allegedly threw out the owner of the vehicle and fled with it towards Ejule area of Kogi State. Apart from dispossessing the vehicle owner of his prized asset, the suspected robbers reportedly made away with his phones, some amount of money and other valuables in the vehicle.
Once they were through, they headed towards Kogi State. But information of the robbery incident soon got to policemen in Nsukka and they immediately swung into action and gave the robbers a hot chase.
As the robbers beat a retreat, the policemen liaised with vigilance group at Ejule community and both combined forces to chase the fleeing robbers. Eventually, Orji and Adama were apprehended at Ejule town and were transferred to Nsukka.
Items recovered from the two suspected robbers included the snatched car, mobile telephone handsets, two SIM cards and one suspected military cap among other items.
Speaking after their arrest, Orji was quoted as saying that he was driven into the crime by poverty and the need to build a befitting house in the name of his parents in their village.
“I was driven to robbery by poverty and the need to keep our family name in its rightful place in the community. Had I able to be gainfully employed, I would not have gone into robbery. All I have done is in the name of my love for my family,” he said.
On his part, Adama, who claimed Orji lured him into robbery, however, maintained that he was only a child of circumstance in the saga.
“He (Orji) did not tell me that he wanted to go and rob that day. He only asked that I accompany him to carry a car which owners asked him to work upon,” Adama claimed.
One of the vigilance group members, who preferred not to be named, claimed that the robbers had been giving residents of the area sleepless nights in recent times and believed that it was an act of God that the two robbers were caught.
Speaking on the arrest of the suspects, Ebere Amaraizu, spokesman for Enugu Police Command claimed the state’s police command are still investigating the suspects in a bid to unravelling the whereabouts of their members.
Amaraizu maintained that the two suspects are cooperating with police in their investigation.
