Two members of a syndicate specialised in the killing of e-hailing drivers and profiting from the sales of the vehicles stolen from their victims have been arrested by policemen in Lagos State.
The arrested members include Roqib Moshood and an alleged accomplice, Olawale Kolawole.
Our correspondent learnt that efforts were on to arrest other fleeing gang members, including Yusuf Adeyemi, who, alongside Moshood, allegedly killed an e-hailing driver, Oluwaseun Adeniran, dumped his corpse by the roadside and stole his vehicle.
A source who spoke to PUNCH Metro on the condition of anonymity said the suspects and their gang members, in a bid to perpetrate the crime and clear their tracks, usually used innocent victims to initiate their criminal acts.
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This was the case when 22-year-old Moshood, on April 12, told his neighbour’s son, Taofiq Sanni, to help him request the services of 43-year-old Adeniran, who, after accepting Sanni’s request, conveyed Moshood and Adeyemi from the Ojodu area to a destination around the Fagbem Filling Station area, close to the Long Bridge end of the Lagos Ibadan Expressway.
Speaking with our correspondent on Wednesday, Moshood said as Adeniran was conveying them to the destination, they told him to navigate through the Fagbem Filling Station area to link the desolate road beside the Long Bridge on the pretext of going there to pick up a friend.
He said, “The incident happened around 9 pm and we told the driver to pass through Fagbem to link the road beside the Long Bridge. We know the area is usually abandoned and how we convinced him was that we were going there to pick up a friend.
But when we got to a spot, I was sitting behind the driver when I suddenly brought out a rope, used it to tie the driver’s neck and as he was wrestling with me to free himself, Adeyemi, who was sitting beside him, brought out a knife, stabbed him in the chest and used a heavy object to hit his head.
“When the driver died, we pushed him out of the vehicle, I took over the steering and drove away from there. On the way, Adeyemi got down and went home to change his cloth because it was stained with the driver’s blood and I drove down to the Afrikan Shrine to meet up with some of our friends.”
Explaining further, he said he and his gang members had killed two e-hailing drivers using the same tactics, adding that the third victim escaped death by a whisker.
But when the threat was getting too much, I called Moshood to ask the owner of the vehicle to intervene and he said he could no longer reach the owner of the car.
“All of a sudden, I heard Moshood had fled the area and when I informed people about what happened and how I was being threatened by the person who bought the car from Moshood, it was at that point that I was told Moshood killed someone and sold the vehicle.”