By DAYO JOHNSON, Akure

Detectives in Ondo State Police Command have arrested a 27-year-old notorious armed robber, Gbenga Kikiowo, who confessed that he started committing crimes at age seven and desired to be more popular than the likes of Ishola Oyenusi and Shina Rambo.

Kikiowo told journalists when he was paraded by the Ondo State Police Command in Akure, the state capital alongside 14 other criminals said that he had operated in Ghana and had been remanded three times.

The state police commissioner, Bolaji Salami, had told newsmen during his briefing that Kikiowo and one Aladeloye Tope aged 25, were arrested at Oke-Aro, Akure metropolis “On 24, May 2021, at about 2100hrs while planning to carry out a robbery operation in Akure city.

Salami said that acting on intelligence report, police detectives arrested the duo and “The suspects have confessed to having been involved in other robbery operations within and around Ondo State. Items recovered are, one pump action gun.”

In an interview with newsmen, Kikiowo said he started robbery activities at the age of seven at his hometown at Igbara-Oke, in lfedore council area of the state, and had been jailed three times.

Speaking on how police detectives apprehended him, Kikiowo said, “I called my partner in crime and informed him that I had a gun with me but it had no bullet so he told me to bring the gun to Akure from lfe which I did but I was arrested by the Scorpion Squad of the police on my way to get the cartridge.

“I started committing crime since I was seven years old. I don’t have any genuine reason to what led me to crime because I was born into a rich family.

“I suddenly started stealing from my parent, my parent believes in traditional religion that is what they practice, so the more they use spiritual solution to my criminal act, the more I stole and that led me to Ghana. From there, I brought my gang to Nigeria and we were arrested during an operation in 2015 and remained in the Olokuta Prison in Akure.

“My father died in 2015, so there was nobody to help me because they believed I’m a criminal. I then saw crime as a perfect way for me to survive after my father’s death and when there was no one to cater to me.

“My father’s name was Kikiowo Ayodele. He married six wives and gave birth to 24 children. He was a native of lgbara Oke, in Ondo State, he is well known; a retired soldier and a farmer.

“I once followed a man to a Divisional Police Station in Akure to bail a motorcycle, the motorcycle was released in a way that surprised me, the man told them his motorcycle was arrested so they asked him the documents of the motorcycle and he gave them only N1,500 and it was released to him even without the knowledge of those officers who collected the motorcycle.

“So, I started using that technique and it worked for me. Once I discovered that those on morning duty had left, I will go there and point at any new and neat motorcycle, give them N1,500 and it will be given to me and I will disappear.

“I was arrested in 2011, the woman Judge who presided over my case liked me and took me to the welfare so that they could encourage me with the word of God but I escaped in 2012 and got involved in another case involving the stealing of motorcycles at A-Division. I was released on the 2nd of February, 2019.

“During the last time I was in prison, I joined the prisoners’ fellowship that preach the word of God from there, I listened to their preaching and I got some assistance from them.

“I later had a dream, where I saw Daddy Enoch Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, praying for me, so, not long, I was discharged and acquitted.

“Upon my return, I went to Redeem Christian Church in Akure and gave a testimony that I had changed after spending four years in prison

“They took me to the Redemption Camp where they planned to take me to a rehabilitation centre. But that’s not what I needed, what I wanted was to find a job that will be fetching me money but they were saying I was into drugs and must first be rehabilitated.

“So, l decide to leave after six month because that was not what I needed.

“From there, I stole their pastor’s tricycle, also known as ‘Keke Maruwa and escaped to Ile- Ife.

“He ask me to return it but I said no, and I decided to sell the tricycle but was arrested.

“After some months I called the Pastor to come and take his tricycle because it was no longer useful to me.

“Throughout my life, I have never achieved any good thing but sorrow.

“The gun the police arrested me with was my last hope. I had decided to leave all this local crime to go international. That was why I took the risk to look for a gun.

“I wanted to become an international armed robber like Ishola Oyenusi, Shina Rambo

and Mufu Olosha Oko because I wanted my name to reign. I believed that it was through crime that I can be popular.

“If not for the gun, there was no way they could have arrested me.

“After my father’s death, I heard about Ghana, upon getting there, I found my colleagues and we started highway robbery and after the operation, they found me competent and from there we started operation.

“Highway robbery is the best we can do in Ghana we can’t do any other operation, from there I invited them to Nigeria after convincing them that I have the key point of Nigeria that we can operate successfully.

“ln Nigeria, we went for first, second operations and the third one, I was arrested and I landed in prison.

”I urge the government to tamper justice with mercy and help me. I have decided to stop crime because I have not gained anything from it.

Meanwhile, the police commissioner, Bolaji Salami, said that Kikiowo and 14 others paraded for criminal activities across the state would soon be charged to court after the completion of police investigations.(Vanguard)

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