In a series of shocking revelations, an armed
robbery suspect, Chris Oboko, a corporal attached to the C4I unit of
the Nigeria Police in Rivers State, has told investigators how an
informant “lured” him into a gang of car snatchers.
Thirty five-year-old Oboko, who has now been
dismissed from the force, was recently arrested in Port Harcourt, during
a mop-up of criminal elements responsible for incessant robberies and
carjacking in the state by the Inspector-General of Police Special
Intelligence Response Team.
For him, the lure of armed robbery loot was something he could not simply resist.
According to him, the turning point for him
was when he encountered two members of a robbery and kidnapping gang,
who were in the process of selling the cars they got from one of their
victims.
Investigators in the case said Oboko’s arrest
seems to validate the shade of opinion that ‘bad eggs’ in the force are
responsible for the bad conduct of some policemen.
Oboko, who joined the force in 2003 said he
was living at the police barracks on Iche Street, Borokiri, Port
Harcourt, while ‘moonlighting’ as a robber.
Saturday PUNCH learnt that he first served at
the Boroki Police Division, before being transferred to the Special
Anti-Robbery Squad. He told journalists that he became a member of the
C4I unit after that.
But in 2015, Oboko decided to join the ranks of the men of the underworld whom he had sworn to protect the society against.
He said in his statement, “In 2015, I met
Johnpaul Amandi, one of our informants when he took two vehicles he
stole from one of his kidnapping victims to one Victor Nwogu to sell. I
met them while they were negotiating the price and I told them I would
join their operation.
“After I became a member, I always found a
way to get the members of the gang released whenever they were arrested
by the police. I am even the resident Pastor of Battle Axe Assembly
Church at Chuba Allo in Port Harcourt. I know this business is evil and
shouldn’t have joined but I could not resist the temptation.”
Oboko, who chronicled his crime spree with
the gang, admitted that he led three other members of the gang to snatch
a Toyota Camry at D-line area of Port Harcourt few months ago, which
his gang sold for N200,000. Out of the proceeds, he said he got
N70,000.
The suspect said on their second operation,
three of them stole three Toyota Camry cars from the D-line motor park
in Port Harcourt in a single day.
He said, “Victor Nwogu in Owerri is the one
that helped sell off the vehicles. He gave us N360, 000 after selling
the cars and I got N150, 000 as my share. I remember that we also
snatched a Toyota Corolla from Elelanwo area of Port Harcourt.
“I pointed a gun at the driver and he ran out
of his vehicle. We sold that one for N250,000 out of which I got a
share of N80,000. There was a Toyota Spider we also snatched at gunpoint
around GRA in Port Harcourt. We hid it somewhere at Borokiri Sand
Field. But before we arrived there in the morning, the car had been
removed.”
Through the confessions of other members of
the gang, Saturday PUNCH learnt that Oboko was also the armourer of his
gang. Apart from that, he allegedly used his police identity to give the
members of the gang safe passage anytime they stole or snatched a
vehicle.
A police source disclosed that in one of the
robbery cases that Oboko investigated as a policeman, he took two
pistols away from the suspect, and rather than file them as exhibits, he
converted the guns to the use of his gang.
He was also said to have perfected the
process of producing fake vehicle documents for each vehicle that his
gang members snatched.
Apart from this, each time they snatched or
stole a vehicle, the suspect would alter the vehicle engine and chassis
numbers before transporting it to the buyer,” the source said.
The arrest of Oboko came after weeks of
tracking by IRT operatives, following information given by Amandi who
had earlier been apprehended.
Twenty-seven-year-old Amandi, a Bayelsa State
indigene, said he was a commercial bus driver before he ventured into
armed robbery specialising in car snatching.
He said his gang was so good at snatching and
stealing cars that on one single night, his second operation after
joining the robbery gang, they got five cars.
Explaining how he met Oboko, he said, “Two
friends of mine kidnapped a former local government chairman in Bayelsa
State and brought two cars taken from the man to me to sell in Port
Harcourt. When I was checking the cars in Nembe Waterside, Corporal
Oboko and one of his colleagues confronted us and took the cars away
from us. Instead of taking the vehicles to their station, they made it
theirs.
“Three months after that, he saw me on the
road and asked me to forgive him and said that he would like me to work
with him. He took me to his boss at C4I and he told him that I was
highly resourceful and I could become an informant giving the police
information about armed robbers in the state.
“His boss told me that if I could assist with
information, I would be rewarded well and I accepted. I even gave them
information that led to the arrest of big armed robbers in Port
Harcourt from whom they recovered arms and ammunition.
“After one month of being an informant,
Corporal Oboko said one of the cars he took from me was giving him
trouble and he needed another car. He said he needed a brand new car. I
told him that I had stopped stealing cars since I had started working
with the car snatching gang, but he insisted. He then said I should not
worry and said that he would follow me to wherever I wanted to steal the
car.
“On our first outing together, we stole a
Honda ‘End of Discussion’. He gave his father the first car and started
using the new one. He then encouraged that we should go for more
robberies because he had seen how easy the first operation was. He also
arranged with Victor in Owerri, who received and sold the vehicles for
us.”
Amandi said he did many operations in the
night with Oboko but that whenever he was arrested, the policeman always
came to his rescue by simply telling whoever had arrested him that he
was an informant working for the C4I.
But it seemed car snatching in the night was not enough for Oboko.
Amadi said he told him one day that he was
tired of operating in the dead of the night and said they needed to
graduate to car snatching at gunpoint in broad daylight.
He said, “I thought Corporal Oboko was joking
but few days after, he brought two pistols to me. He said he bought
the guns. We snatched many cars around Port Harcourt, but even though we
used to share the proceeds equally in the past, it got to a time that
he started
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