Kate who resides on 39, Unity Street, Egan area of Igando, Lagos disclosed that her life took a tumble recently, when her husband, Monday, was taken into custody in connection with a robbery gang that snatched a Toyota Camry 2000 model, belonging to a pastor, Mr. Lawal.
While trying to play a good samaritan by exposing an armed robber, little did she know she was also exposing her husband.
Read her interview with Punch, below “That day, I was at home when Michael -one of Monday’s customers and acquaintances – came in and gave a small bag to my husband to keep for him. Monday did not even open the bag, he just collected it and dropped it somewhere. But later, I overheard Michael speaking on the phone. I heard him saying they had snatched a car and that the owner was a pastor. I didn’t know who he was speaking with over the phone but I heard him say ‘I have kept the document with the boy who does embroidery for me.’
“I was not comfortable because I hate stealing, let alone robbery. When Michael left, I went through the contents of the small bag that Michael had brought and found a name and a phone number.
“I called the number and the man at the other end said he was the agent from whom the vehicle was bought. I told the man about what happened and how Michael was planning to sell the stolen car and brought some goods to my husband. The man said he would inform the pastor. But later, the police came and arrested my husband.”
“I thought the man who kept the documents and other things with my husband would take all the blame since my husband knew nothing about the issue. I thought Michael would simply be arrested and that would be the end of it. I love my husband because he does not stay out late and he takes care of me despite the fact that we are poor and we both sometimes go to bed hungry,” she said.
Unfortunately for Kate, her mother-in-law has got wind of the fact that she was the one who made the call that put her husband in trouble. She suspected that the police gave the mother-in-law that information.
“Mama has said she would send me packing with my child. I have nowhere to go. I have nothing. I stopped school when my mother died because there was no money to go further. My father is bedridden. Mama came to marry me for Monday because we had nothing. I love my husband very much and I did not mean him any harm. The only close relative that I could pack out to live with is my grandma in Benin city (Edo State), but I don’t have a dime to even travel there.”
Kate said that the only thing that could save her from becoming homeless is for Monday to be released from police custody.
A source at the Special Anti-Robbery Squad headquarters, Ikeja, which is handling the case, obliged Saturday PUNCH with the details of the case based on the verbal accounts and written statements of Lawal and the apprehended suspects.
According to the source, the incident occurred on the said date around 8pm as Lawal was returning to his house.
The source said that Lawal’s account showed that he was approached by Monday’s accomplices, Michael and Asunmo– as he was about to drive inside his compound in an estate in Egbeda area of Lagos.
The source said, “Lawal said he was bundled into the back of his car by the assailants. Michael sat in the back with him while the other, Asunmo, who was driving the car, took the Isheri-LASU-Iba Expressway from Egbeda. As a pastor in his church, Lawal started calling to God but Michael, who sat with him tried to shut him up. Lawal deposed that Michael assaulted him by slapping him in an attempt to shut him up, but he continued shouting Jesus, anyway.
“Our investigation showed that the robbers dropped Lawal off at Akesan and gave him N200 to get back home after he pleaded with them that they had robbed him of all the money he had with him. One of them had also threatened to shoot and kill him.”
Some of the things that were stolen along with the vehicle included Automated Teller Machine cards, cheque books, some cash, project documents and a Bible.
But more than four weeks after the incident, the stolen car is yet to be recovered.
The source, however, explained that the stolen car has taken a long route after being traced to Agbara, Ogun State, Ikorodu, Lagos State and finally Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
“First, we traced the car to Asunmo, who lives in Agbara area. He confessed that he had sold the vehicle to a car dealer in Ikorodu area of Lagos for N200,000. When we got to the dealer, he said that the car had been sold to someone from Port Harcourt,” the source told Saturday PUNCH.
An informed senior officer at the command, however, denied that the police were responsible for disclosing Kate’s role in her husband’s arrest to Mabel.
“Police officers are not daft; most of the breakthroughs that the police have credited to informants. We can’t compromise our informants because of armed robbers. The information could have been leaked from another source that knows about it,” the source said.
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