A Navy officer, Ibrahim Adamu, 25, and an officer of the Nigerian Correctional Service, Abdullahi Abdulwahab 26, have been arrested by men of the Edo State Police Command over an alleged armed robbery and a car snatching.
This was made known by the state Police Public Relations Officer, SP Chidi Nwabuzor, when the suspects were paraded on Tuesday at the police headquarters in Benin.
Nwabuzor told newsmen that the officers were arrested in military uniforms in Ekpoma by a crack team of the command based on credible information.
According to the police image maker, the embattled officers attacked the driver of an unregistered C300 Mercedes Benz car in Sapele, Delta State, snatched the car from him and also forced him to transfer a sum of N400,000 to their account.
He disclosed that they had planned to sell the stolen car in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory when they were arrested by the police in Ekpoma, Edo state.
He added, “The suspects have made statements and claimed to be personnel of the Nigerian Navy and Correctional Service respectively.”
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Nwabuzor said the vehicle and military uniform were also recovered from the suspects.
Adamu, while speaking to journalists, confessed that he was arrested for stealing a Mercedes Benz C300 car in Delta state.
“I was recruited into the Navy in 2019. I worked in Lokoja, Kogi state before I was posted to Warri, Delta state. It was when I went on a course in Sapele that I made the plan to steal a vehicle.
“After my course, Abdulwahab came to visit me and my plans, assuring him that we would make money and he agreed to join me. We chatted about a tricycle from Warri to Sapele for the operation.
“We saw a vehicle without a number plate in Sapele, we asked him to stop but he refused. We pursued him to a village where he finally stopped. And I told him, we are taking him to our office for driving an unregistered vehicle and he pleaded that we should settle the matter there but we refused.
“I took over the steering from him and started driving but when we got to Oghara Road, he offered us money to settle the matter and I told him to pay N500,000 but he paid N400,000 to a Point of Sale account which I gave him and was later transferred to me. We were driving to Abuja to sell the car when the police arrested us.”
The other suspect, Abdulwahab, claimed this is first time being involved in a robbery, adding that Adamu invited him to Warri for the job.