Robbers Almost Shot Me for Being a Northerner

 

• They said I was Boko Haram |

Dupe Olaoye-Osinkolu/

Wednesday, July 2, 2014, was another day in the life of Ibrahim Zita, a staff of one of Nigeria’s biggest cement manufacturing companies, with head office on Lagos Island.

As usual, he closed from work and was heading home in Ogba, on the Lagos Mainland. His driver had just turned his Honda Accord 2013 model off Lateef Jakande road into WEMPCO road, when they noticed a Toyota Sienna ahead of them.

Of course, there is nothing unusual about seeing other vehicles on the road, at any point in time, in a city like Lagos. However, what set this particular vehicle apart was the very slow pace it was moving, given the fact that the time was around 10pm.

But, due to ongoing construction work, which had narrowed the road considerably, the driver could not immediately overtake the Sienna, which had become increasingly, if not deliberately, obstructive.

Eventually, they reached a point, about 200 meters away from Zita’s neighbourhood, where the driver decided he had a chance to move in front, when the Sienna suddenly crossed them and two men jumped down from it, brandishing AK47 rifles.

A third man, who held what appeared like an automatic pistol, remained behind the wheels.

Immediately the deadly drama began to unfold, Zita said the first question he asked himself was why he had not paid close attention to his surroundings that night. According to him, it was his habit to look closely at every movement around him whenever he was on the road late at night. But, he was busy reading a report that took most of his attention that particular night.

Zita said it was after the occupants of the Sienna had successfully cornered them that he remembered he had earlier caught a glimpse of the car while they were on Lateef Jakande road and had thought it was moving in a funny. He, however, didn’t dwell on it much because of the document he was reading.

Perhaps, if he had been alert, as he too agreed he should have been, he might have asked his driver to overtake the vehicle on the busier freeway and could have gotten far ahead of the impending danger.

Immediately the two men got down from their vehicle, one of them attempted to smash the glass of the driver’s door with the butt of his rifle, but for the driver, who impulsively lowered the glass, thinking they could be policemen.

Reality, however, dawned on both of them when one of the assailants hit the driver simultaneously on the neck and rib cage with the butt of his rifle, while the second opened the rear door and dragged Zita out of the car.

Narrating further their experience from that point, Zita told Chief Detective that the robbers also dragged the driver out, leaving the car to roll to a stop by itself after it hit the kerb. They, then, threw the two of them into the Sienna and asked them to lay flat on the floor.

He continued: “They, then, made a U-turn and re-entered Lateef Jakande road, while they continued beating both of us. They, however, beat my driver more. They were hitting him repeatedly with the butt of their rifles. Then they started asking us questions. The seized my wallet and retrieved my ATM (Automated Teller Machine) cards, which were three, and asked me which one has money. After I told them the one that had money, they asked for the PIN and the balance in the account.

“Meanwhile, they had collected our phones and all the money we had on us. But, they never stopped hitting us. One surprising thing was that all the police checkpoints we encountered, they were not stopped by the police. They would just mutter something and the policemen would wave them on. We passed about three checkpoints. The first was Allen Roundabout, the second was under the flyover in Ikeja, but I can’t remember the third place. Immediately the sight a police checkpoint, they would cock their guns, but would relax after they had been waved through and returned to grilling us.

“They spoke Ibo and pidgin English. When I told them I had only N40, 000 in my account, they got really angry. They asked why I would be using such a big car and not have money in my account. I, then, told them we were both contract staff with our company. When I also told them I was from Jos, they threatened to shoot me. They said I belonged to Boko Haram that had been killing their people in the north. But I told them I was a Christian and attended Redeemed Christian Church God and they appeared softened and said I should thank God for our papa (the General Overseer of my church) and my people, who were praying for me. One thing I am also grateful for was the fact that as much they searched us, they didn’t detect my driver’s spy police identification card. I was sure if they had found it, they wouldn’t have spared us for any reason.

“At a point, after they had collected the money in my account, they threatened to take us to a herbalist that would pay good money for our heads and other body parts, since they couldn’t get much money from us. Then, suddenly, one of them remembered they didn’t search my car and suggested that they returned to it. But, the others dismissed the suggestion and said the operation was ‘bad market’.

“Eventually, at about midnight, they decided they would let us go. But, they warned us to run as fast as we could immediately we got down from their car. Soon after, they got to a location I couldn’t recall and asked both of us to get down. It was my driver that got out first. We both started running, not knowing where we were heading, until my driver collapsed.

“A few people later approached us and after we told them what happened, one of them helped me to put a call through to my wife. We, thereafter, took a taxi to my sister in-law’s house. It from there that we went, along with my company’s security patrol team, to the place my car was abandoned. We met the car as we had left it, with all our stuff, including my laptop that was in the boot, intact. We later went to lodge a complaint at Area ‘G’ Police Command, in Ogba.

“It was after I resumed work that the security people in my office told us I lucky I didn’t have an ATM card for my account in which I had a significant amount of money. They said there had been recent cases of victims that were abducted by robbers and held for as many days as it took to empty their accounts. They said some that had really huge amounts were held for as long as three to four days. They also warned us about using ATMs at night, especially on Fridays and weekends.”

 

 

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