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A 29-year-old bricklayer, Bello Sikiru, who almost snuffed the life out of a commercial motorcyclist, Olaitan Abel, in order to steal his motorcycle, has said that it was hunger that pushed him into the act.
Sikiru was arrested by policemen from Owode Yewa Division in Ogun State, for attempted murder and robbery.
Saturday Tribune learnt that on November 26, the suspect stopped the commercial motorcyclist under the pretex of going somewhere.
However, on getting to an isolated spot in Ago Baba community, via Owode, he asked the rider to let him disembark, only for him to grab his (the rider’s) neck, in an attempt to strangle him. But the victim reportedly struggled with him until they both fell.
Bent on achieving his aim, the suspect was said to have grabbed a shovel and started hitting it on the victim’s head, neck and back.
With no strength to fight back, the victim pretended to be dead. Satisfied with what he had done, the suspect left him and went for his bike and pushed it further into the bush to hide it.
But at that moment, the victim got up and ran towards a nearby poultry. Seeing the move, the suspect knew he would be in trouble if the news should spread, so he dropped the bike and went after the victim. However, he turned back when the space between them was so wide, and went through a bushy path to escape.
It was further learnt that when Abel narrated his ordeal to the poultry workers, they immediately alerted the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Owode Yewa Division, CSP Mohammed Suleiman Baba, who deployed detectives to the scene of the incident.
The victim was rushed to a nearby hospital while the police mounted a manhunt for the suspect.
Unknown to him, the news of his act had gone before him, and when he came from the bush path into a street, holding a shovel stained with blood, a small crowd was waiting for him. The police were called, and in order to be sure that he was the victim’s attacker, he was taken to the hospital where Olaitan was being treated. He was nailed by the victim’s confirmation of his criminal act against him.
In an interview, 40-year-old Abel, from Ebute via Ilaro, but living at Ago Baba, close to Owode, narrated his experience thus: “I left Ago Baba to pick passengers at Owode. While there, a man (Sikiru) waved me down at about 12 noon and asked me to take him to Ago Baba. We negotiated the fare and I picked him. When we got to a point at the area in front of a building, he told me to stop for him to disembark. The next thing was that he grabbed my neck from the back and tightened his hands round it. He wanted to twist it but I started dragging it with him to extricate myself from his grip.
“In the process, we both fell with the motorcycle and struggling and turning. He wanted to overpower me while I was also making efforts to be free. Unknown to me, there was a shovel in front of the house. He picked it and started using it to give me cuts on the head. I struggled to get up and was initially using my hands to block the shovel from hitting my head, but at a point, my hands became weak.
“He pushed me into a bushy path beside the building and continued hitting my head, neck and back with the sharp end of the shovel, inflicting cuts on me.
“When I became powerless, I pretended to be dead. When he noticed that I was no longer moving, he lifted my hands and legs, one after the other, and thought so too. He stopped using the shovel on me and stood up.
“He checked one of my pockets and found my phone there. When he saw that the phone was not very good, he returned it. He checked the other pocket, saw N10,000 that I just collected in a group contribution and took it. He went to my motorcycle where it fell, picked it and pushed it towards the side of the house.
“At that time, I started crawling towards the roadside. As I stood up, he saw me, left the motorcycle and started pursuing me. I ran towards a nearby poultry, bleeding heavily, then he turned back when he couldn’t catch up with me. It was the poultry workers who ran to me when I fell by their side. They called security operatives and I was taken to a hospital.”
In his confession, Sikiru, aged 29 and married with a child, said: I am a bricklayer. Before the incident, I didn’t get a job to do. The ones I did before then had yet to be paid for. And my wife was at home, heavily pregnant with our second child.
“On the day I committed the crime, I was very hungry. I called the man I worked for but he didn’t pick the calls. I called all the people i knew for help but they were all telling me that they didn’t have money. And I needed to eat.
“I stood by the roadside, thinking of what to do. I saw a bikeman and flagged him down. I told him to take me to Ago Baba, and he billed me N400. I begged him to take N300 from me, though I didn’t have it, and he agreed. My aim was to go to a friend who lives there and used to help me. I believed he would give me the money to pay for my fare. I would also eat there, and I was sure he would give me something to take home. But I didn’t call my friend ahead.
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“When we got to Ago Baba, we stopped in front of the friend’s house. I noticed that my friend was not at home and I didn’t know what to tell the bike man. It was that fear that brought evil thoughts to my mind. It was the devil’s work.
“A spirit told me to attack the bike rider, and I did. I noticed one shovel in front of my friend’s house, because he is also a bricklayer. I took it and started attacking the rider with it. He struggled to be free from me until we fell into a side bush. I continued hacking the rider with the shovel until I saw him become silent. I stood up and picked his motorcycle. As I did that, I noticed him getting up to run away, with shouts of ‘kidnapper, thief!’
“Knowing very well that what I did was bad and should not be heard of, I became unsettled. And I know that the victim would put me in trouble. I tried to pursue him but could not meet up, so I turned back.
“I took another route to escape but I saw people waiting for me. As soon as they saw me, they started beating me. Police came and we moved to the hospital where the victim was being given medical treatment. He identified me as his attacker.”
However, he said he did not remove money from the victim’s pocket but only saw his phone which he didn’t take.
Confirming the incident, the command’s Police Public Relations Officer, SP Abimbola Oyeyemi, said that the state Commissioner of Police, Lanre Bankole, had ordered the suspect’s transfer to the State Criminal Investigation Department for further investigation and subsequent prosecution.
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