I couldn’t resist the money, says suspected hijacker

Operatives of the Zonal Intervention Squad, Zone 2 Command, Onikan, Lagos, have arrested two suspected armed robbers, who specialised in snatching trucks on highways.
The suspects are Robert Mathew (29) and Saheed Adeniran (30). They were arrested at Ikorodu area of Lagos State, after they had snatched a truck from a driver in Akinyele Local Government Area of Oyo State.
The suspected armed robbers were said to have been contracted by Alhaji Ahmed in Ikorodu to steal the truck head for him. He promised to reward them handsomely if they succeeded.
According to Mathew, when Ahmed contracted him that he needed a truck head, he mobilised his gang members in Ibadan and they all set out to Iseyin Road to search for trucks to snatch.
He added: “We were five that went for the operation. We saw a driver and his conductor fixing something on his truck along the roadside. We approached and dragged them to a nearby bush. We then tied them to a tree. Thereafter, we drove the truck away from the scene to a safe place. The following morning, we took the truck to Ahmed in Ikorodu.”
The police said that after the owner of the truck came to lodge a report about the stolen truck, police detectives immediately swung into action. The truck was tracked to Ikorodu area of Lagos State.
The police added: “We caught up with the suspects just as they were about to deliver the truck to the Alhaji that contracted them to steal it. Two among the suspects were arrested, while three escaped. We, however, recovered the truck head.”
Mathew confessed that although he had been hijacking trucks before, he stopped sometimes in 2015. He, however, went back to his old ways after listening to the mouth-watering offer Ahmed made to them.
On his part, Adeniran explained that his role was mainly to drive stolen truck from any location where it was snatched, to the contractor’s place, using fake documents.
He said: “Whenever a truck was snatched, those that went for the operation would call me to come and help them to drive it to the buyer’s place. That’s what I have been doing to earn money. Since I joined the gang, I had driven two trucks for them; on each operation they paid me N35,000. I stopped the work after I had an accident while driving one of the stolen vehicles to the buyer’s house in 2015.”
The truck driver, Mr. Baba Danladi, said he and the conductor were fixing something on the faulty truck when the suspects appeared from nowhere and swooped on them.
He said: “My conductor and I were heading towards Lagos from Ibadan when the truck developed fault. We decided to park and fixed it. Suddenly, these men alighted from a car and bundled us into a nearby bush. They tore our clothes and used it to tie us to a tree. We were in the bush throughout the night; it was some farmers who were going to farm that rescued us.
“We then went into Oyo town to report the incident to the police. I didn’t know that our boss, the owner of the truck, had also reported the matter to the police in Abeokuta. Fortunately, the truck was tracked to Ikorodu where it was recovered. The two suspects were arrested.”