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THE NATION, SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 2012
I recruited my members, including a native doctor, during my stay in prison A – Suspected robbery gang leader SUSPECTED leader of a sixman robbery gang arrested by operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Lagos State Police Command, 31year-old Patrick Ogar, a native of Ogoja, Cross River State, has explained why he escaped when he realised that SARS operatives wanted to use him and another detained member of the gang to track down a buyer of stolen vehicles in Obosi, Anambra State. Narrating his involvement in a robbery operation in Ajah, a Lagos suburb, recently, Ogar said: “I am the leader and ‘commander-inchief’ of the six-man robbery gang that terrorised Ajah residents. We specialised in robbing rich people in Ajah and its environs of their money and exotic cars, particularly jeeps. I hate big men because they hate common people. Even the government hates common people. When poor criminals steal or rob people of small money, the people, the police and the court would shout, ‘crucify them!’ But when very important people rob or steal, they are treated like kings. Even communities celebrate them and honour them because of their wealth. “I escaped in Anambra State when the opportunity showed itself, because I did not want to experience the suffering that common criminals undergo in the hands of law enforcement agents. Big people who rob others of millions of naira with their pen are charged to court but none of them goes to jail in the end while common people who steal peanuts are charged to court and remanded. The case of a common man is celebrated and in the end, they are slammed into jail while the more unlucky ones are sentenced to death. “I am a married man with a child. My wife is pregnant with my second baby. I am a qualified auto mechanic. It is enough to take care of my family. I took the chance to escape the moment my captors became careless. It was a life time opportunity. “I have participated in more than four robbery operations since I came back from prison. I went to Onitsha prison and spent some years and later went to prison in Lagos. It was in prison that I met Jude Eze, the native doctor, and we became friends and learnt a lot together about crime. “In our first operation in Ajah, we used two guns to snatch a Toyota car. We ordered the owner to come down or have his life wasted. He complied and we zoomed off with the car. “The second operation involved the snatching of an SUV Xtera. We had two guns but we did not shoot the man because he obeyed and we took the jeep without stress. “In the third operation, we took a Toyota Highlander. We saw a man discussing with his girlfriend in his jeep and we went straight to him, blocked his car with ours and pointed gun at him and he surrendered his car to us. “I don’t kill. Even whenever any of my gang members threatened to shoot a victim, I never allowed him to shoot. It was during the fourth operation that luck ran out on us. We went into a building through the gutter. When we entered the compound, the landlord had not woken up. We waited for him to wake up. After an hour or thereabout, the man woke up, opened the door and came out. We followed him immediately and
•His arrest was our greatest manhunt operation, says SARS
•The jeep with which the re-arrested suspects initially escaped. Inset: The arms and ammunition recovered from them
Ebele BONIFACE marched him inside at gunpoint. We ordered him to give us money and he gave Bright, a member of the gang, N24,000. “Later, Abushi, another member, went outside the compound to survey the situation outside the building. To our greatest surprise, he came back and told us that policemen had cordoned off the area. “The policemen called on us to come out if we didn’t want them to open fire on us. I was the first to come out from the room to the compound. I then called on my colleagues to come out but they hesitated for some minutes before they filed out. Uche jumped over the fence and escaped. Abuchi, Bright and I were arrested. “Later, SARS operatives took Abuchi and I to Obosi, Anambra State, to help them track down the buyer of most of the vehicles we
had snatched. When the buyer arrived, the policeman who drove us there left the ignition key behind when he wanted to arrest the buyer. As he jumped on the buyer, I started the vehicle and zoomed off. In his effort to stop us by firing at us, the buyer also escaped. We went straight to Atani in Obaru Local Government Area. “Our trouble began when we called a nurse, a wife of a police officer transferred to Port Harcourt from Fegge Police Station, to come and treat us. The Police trailed her and found where we were hiding and arrested us.” Recalling his prison experience, Ogar said he went to prison in Onitsha in 2006 for snatching a Lexus SUV. He said: “I was arrested by SARS men in Ihiala, prosecuted and sent to jail. When I came to Lagos, I started robbery again. It was during one of the operations that I was
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I don’t kill. Even whenever any of my gang members threatened to shoot a victim, I never allowed him to shoot. It was during the fourth operation that luck ran out on us. We went into a building through the gutter...
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arrested and sent to jail in Lagos. I made a lot of friends in prison and most of them became my gang members when we came together. It was in prison that I knew the native doctor, Jude Eze, and later knew his sister, the nurse who treated us.” The officer in charge of SARS, Abba Kyari, said the arrest of Ogar was the greatest manhunt operation embarked upon by his men. He said it enabled them to arrest the two robbery suspects who escaped with a jeep and other suspects who escaped at a scene of robbery in Ajah, as well as the native doctor who keeps their guns and his nurse sister, Mrs Amerchi Ofem, a wife of a serving police officer, who treated wounded robbery suspects. The second suspect, Bright Egwu Onwu (27), an indigene of Amaobia Akwa South Local Government Area, Anambra State said: “When the officer dived to hold the receiver of our stolen goods and left the ignition behind, Patrick started the car and drove off from Obosi to Atani. There, his brother called the nurse to come from Fegge to Atani.” The third suspect, Uchenna Ejike, (27), a native of Umumba Ndiuno, Eziagu Local Government Area, Enugu State, said: “I escaped from the Ajah robbery scene when the Police had surrounded the place. I ran to Obosi. When they called me
on the phone that they too had escaped from the Police, I went to Atani to join them.” The fourth suspect and the gang’s native doctor and alleged armourer, Jude Eze (33), a native of Umudaike village, Anambra State, said the circumstances surrounding his birth must have aided his involvement in questionable activities. He said: “My mother was looking for a male child after she had given birth to many female children. She promised a shrine at my place that if she was given a male child, she would offer the male child to the shrine. When I was born, I was offered to the shrine. That was how I became a native doctor. “When Patrick, Bright and Uche Ejike arrived Atani, Patrick and Bright had bullet wounds. When I saw the wounds, I asked what happened. They told me that they escaped from the Police who had put them inside a jeep without handcuffs and also left them alone in the car with the ignition key. They asked me what I expected them to do in such situation. I then told them that I do not treat bullet wounds but would call my sister, who is a nurse, to come and treat them. “I then called my sister and told her that my friends had auto accident and that she should come and treat them. I met Patrick and Bright in Onitsha prison. They both play oracle. I have four sisters. The nurse is the eldest. I am the only son of my mother and the youngest. I am not the gang’s armourer. I did not rob with them. I was in my house when they came with bullet wounds.” The fifth suspect, Amaechi Ofem, (43) said: “I am a nurse. I attended nursing school in Oji River. When they called me to come to Atani, I did not know that they were armed robbers before I treated them. I later referred them to the house of Chief Ogbuefi because their bones were affected. They entered a boat and went to Ogbakuba, a town after Akri. “They called me on the phone that Ogbuefi wanted to see me because of their friend who had an accident. When I got there, the Police arrested me.” One of the gang’s victims, Ayo Abayomi, a businessman based at Ajah, said: “These guys came to my house as I was driving into my compound. Their leader pointed a gun at me while two others broke my side glass and said: ‘Cooperate or we waste your life.’ I complied and they collected my shoes, blackberry phone and wristwatch. “The place where they met me was the compound of my shop. When they finished searching my pocket and ransacking the vehicle, they pointed a gun at me and ordered me to take them to my residence. As we were going to my house, we passed through Ogombo Police Station in Ajah, but the police did not know that I was being held hostage by four armed robbers. When we got to my house, they collected N155,000 cash. This was between 7 pm and 8 pm.” The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Umaru Manko, expressed joy over the re-arrest of the suspects, a development he said had boosted the image of the command.