PHOTO: Face of armed robber who squandered N45m ONE robbery share

THE NATION – An armed robbery suspect yesterday recalled how his gang leader almost killed him and his cohorts after an operation in which they got a huge money from some Bureau de Change operators at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, Lagos.

The suspect, simply identified as Samuel aka Asiwaju, who is being interrogated by operatives of the Lagos State Anti Robbery Squad (SARS), said he participated in the infamous MMIA robbery, where billions of naira were stolen.

He said: “After the robbery in March 2013, we packed a lot of money; it should be over a billion naira because our bags were filled with dollars and other currencies. The thing that surprised me was that immediately our leader, Arab saw the amount of the money, he pulled his General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) and wanted to shoot us all. We started pleading with him to take the whole money and spare our lives.

“He later asked us to take some bundles. I picked some bundles and when I counted my share, it was N45million. We were eight that went for the robbery and coincidentally, seven of us got the same amount, but I can’t say how much our informants got. Arab got over a billion naira.”

Thanking God that he was not killed when he was paraded yesterday, he said: “I invested part of my share in business. I bought lands and trucks for transport business. Parts of my share were taken from me by some street urchins who got wind of the robbery and threatened to report me to the police. So, I gave them some money. Unfortunately, my transport business did not do well and I became broke. I did not want to go back to robbery because all other members had been arrested by SARS, but because of hunger, I was forced to make one more attempt this year. So bad, I was unlucky to land in the hands of SARS operatives.”

Expressing regret that he did not heed the advice of his friends to run abroad, Samuel added: “I feel sad that God saved me and gave me the opportunity to escape but I messed it up. God really loved me because all our members were rounded up and I was the only one left, yet I did not use the opportunity to escape”

Commissioner of Police Umar Manko, who paraded him alongside four other suspects, disclosed that one GPMG, one AK47 rifle, two double-barrel locally made pistols, I0 GPMG fully loaded magazines, eight loaded AK47 magazines, 32 live cartridges and Volkswagen Sharon bus were recovered from the suspects.