Sherifat Bakare (middle) with other gang members
Twenty-four-year-old Sherifat Bakare who recently quit prostitution and joined the gang was arrested together with four accomplices by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the Ogun State Police Command in Abeokuta on Wednesday, May 21.
According to Bakare, she was hustling before Raji, my boyfriend, when he asked her to join his gang a few weeks ago. Another gang member, Bola Onasile, (also in SARS custody) had approached her boyfriend about the availability of N70m in a wealthy man’s house in Joju area of Sango, Ogun State.
Sherifat Bakare stated that she only gone on two operations with them adding that she only knew that Onasile was the one who brought the job.
When Raji gathered other members, they snatched a car, a Nissan Quest, around Iwo Road, Ibadan which was used for the operation. But, their operation went wrong as police cornered them and Raji was shot dead.
Sherifat Bakare tells about her life before the gang
“I am from Idofian in Kwara State. My father is late but my mother lives in Ibadan. She has no idea I do this kind of job and she does not even know I am in police custody.”
Bakare explained that she was a prostitute in Lekki where she was making up to N5,000 per day until about two years ago.
“I was living with a security guard in a house at Osborne in Ikoyi. The landlord of the house was out of the country. I was going from there to ‘hustle’ in Lekki every night.
“Raji was a good helper to me. That was why I decided to leave prostitution when he begged me. When he introduced me to armed robbery, I asked him if there would be no problem and he assured me that there would be none. When we started dating, I did not know he was an armed robber though.”
The young lady said she learnt photography when she dropped out of secondary school but had not been able to practise the trade because she did not think she could make much money from it.
According to 36-year-old Onasile, who brought the N70m job, an acquaintance of his, a man named Tunde, informed him about the money.
Onasile who was a revenue collector for a local government council in Lagos before he lost the job said, “Tunde is like a brother to me. He told me the man we were going to rob was his relation. He said the man had N70m at home. I told him I had no boys who could do the job. But he was always disturbing me about getting a gang together to do the operation.
“Few days later, I informed Raji about the operation and he told me he could get boys for the job. We planned to sell the vehicle we snatched after the operation but we did not know how police got to know about the operation. Tunde ran away when the police were after us.”
According to him, he got a job as a site thug getting assignments from land grabbers once in a while but the money was not coming as needed.
Meanwhile, a gang of robbers, who specialised in snatching motorcycles have been apprehended by the SARS in Ogun State after an under cover operation.
According to the Police Public Relations Officer, Ogun State, Mr. Muyiwa Adejobi, more members of Bakare’s robbery gang are still out on the streets. He said investigation was still ongoing to ensure that they did not escape justice.
The wives of the gang members were also arrested because they admitted that they knew their husbands were robbers.
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