Lanre and his gang members were known for their notoriety, crime and shady deals in the Oke-Ogun axis of Oyo State but they met their waterloo when operatives of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Ibadan stormed their hideout recently. OLUWATOYIN MALIK reports

FOR Lanre (surname unknown) and his gang members, the only thing they knew how to do well was to unleash terror on the people of Oke Ogun part of Oyo State  and its environs, as well other parts of the South West, through snatching motorcycles at gunpoint. Not only this, the gang also had a thriving business in marijuana sales. The gang became so daring at a point that they decided to rob someone known to them of his motorcycle. Protest by the motorcycle owner and other elders within Ebu community in Iseyin town was not taken lightly by the gang as they beat the elderly men and inflicted matchete cuts on them for daring to lay claim to the motorcycle they stole, so much that some of the elderly men had to be hospitalised.

Hell bent on inflicting pains on innocent people, Lanre and his gang members continued their onslaught until the day dawned for them recently  as operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Ibadan, stormed their hideout in Igbojaiye community in Itesiwaju Local Government of Oyo State to arrest the suspects. In order to escape arrest however, the gang leader, Lanre had allegedly opened fire on the SARS operatives, the reply to which led to his death. Other members of his gang, Ibrahim Rafiu and Toyin Ikudoro were arrested while others escaped. Saheed Ademola a.k.a Akere had earlier been arrested in Iseyin.

Sunday Tribune investigations revealed that the raiding of the suspected criminals’ hideout was a follow-up of Saheed Ademola’s case which was transferred from Iseyin Division to SARS, Ibadan. Along the line of investigation at SARS, the operatives had reportedly got a hint of the whereabouts of other gang members and this prompted the dawn raid of the Igbojaiye hideout.

Speaking with Sunday Tribune on his background and what led him to crime, one of the arrested suspects, 25-year-old Ibrahim said: “I knew Lanre in Iseyin as a log-truck driver. Though I was staying in Lagos, I used to see him whenever I came to Iseyin. Some weeks back, he brought a Bajaj Boxer motorcycle to me at home, unknown to me that he stole it from someone within the town.

“When he came with the motorcycle, he told me he wanted to go and buy some marijuana which he was also dealing in, and asked me to help him find a place to keep the motorcycle until he would be ready to leave town. I went to meet a friend of mine called Saheed Akere and told him to help keep the bike. I did not bother asking Lanre where he got the motorcycle from because he had many that I used to see him with. Since Saheed did not also know how the bike came about, he collected it from Lanre and kept it somewhere in the house he lived with his parents.

“Around 5p.m. same day, Lanre called to know where I was and I said I was still at home. He asked that we meet at Saheed’s house. We were there when elderly men within the community came and told us that they were not going to allow us take the okada away as it was stolen from the son of one of them. I called Lanre and told him what was happening and he said the bike was given to him by some of his friends, promising to give them a call. He called them truly but to my surprise, five  young men came to where we were, and started beating the elderly men. Thereafter, they took the bike away. Since the men beaten included Saheed’s father and even others that we regarded as our fathers, I ran away from the place and left Iseyin town. Lanre later came with three young men to meet me in Igbojaiye where I was.

“I pleaded with him to return the bike because I heard that my friend, Saheed, was in serious trouble, but Lanre replied that there was nothing he could do about the bike as it had been sold. Four days later, he came back with four bags of marijuana and four men on two motorcycles. He promised to buy another bike to replace the one stolen in Iseyin. He asked me to keep the two motorcycles and handed over their documents to me. One of his boys also brought an additional one, making three.

In the early hours of the day we were arrested, Lanre and his boys brought in another two motorcycles, making five. I suspected he must have stolen them but my sense of reasoning was overshadowed by greed since I knew that I would get something out of the proceeds if I should help him dispose of them.

“He had called me a day before that he was coming and that I should meet him at a place called Agunrege. Eventually, we met at Iseyin because I had to go Iseyin. He also  called another boy in Iseyin, Toyin, to help him ride one okada to Igbojaiye.There was one Togolese called Adamu who was Lanre’s right hand man. He knew everything about Lanre’s operation and shady deals. We arrived Igbojaiye around 3.30 a.m. and he told me that it was Adamu that arranged how he got the two locally-made pistols that were found with us. He also told me that he brought the bikes from Lagos State.

“He was to go to Saki in the morning for more business. All the while I was in Igbojaiye, I was in hiding because of what happened in Iseyin. I was staying with friends, though my father’s village was not too far from the place. I didn’t know that some people within the village noticed our activities and the way Lanre was bringing in motorcycles. They must have informed the police because all I knew was that we were sleeping when we were woken up by gunshots. It was around 4a.m. Immediately I saw the police, I knew our game was up but Lanre did not wait. He attempted to escape and he was halted by bullets and he fell down. His right hand boy, Adamu, however, escaped. The other boy,
Toyin Ikudoro, was also arrested. By then, I knew the end has come for me. My parents warned me against joining bad gang but I didn’t listen to them.”

Another suspected member of the gang, 20-year-old Toyin Ikudoro, told Sunday Tribune that he was not aware of Lanre’s involvement in robbery but only knew him as hemp merchant. “Lanre promised to pay me N3,000. That was what landed me in trouble now.I didn’t know he had guns on him. He decided we should sleep on the way to continue our journey in the morning. That was how police came and we were arrested while he was shot while trying to escape,” Toyin stated.

The police image maker, Mr Femi Okanlawon, while speaking with journalists when the suspects were brought to the Eleiyele headquarters of the Oyo State Police Command, said that the gang members would be placed in SARS custody for further investigations while efforts were on to arrest the fleeing gang members.