Detectives attached to the Lagos State Police Command have arrested a houseboy, Usang Effiong, aka Ben Peters, who stole his master’s car 11 days after he was employed. Effiong was arrested at a hideout, at Agege area of Lagos two months after the incident. The stolen car was recovered from him. When the Effiong secured the job, he gave his employer a fake name, ‘Ben Peters.’ It was after he was arrested that the police found out that his real name is Usang Effiong.
The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), CSP Chike Oti, explained: “On October 24, Mr Alexander Okoye and his wife, Njedika, wrote a petition to the Commissioner of Police, Imohimi Edgal, complaining that their houseboy, ‘Ben Peters’ who worked with them for just 11 days, stole their Toyota Camry Saloon car, $5,000, six shirts and a Motorola Android Phone.” Oti said that it was based on the complaint that the CP directed a Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP), Kemi Adedeji, attached to the Human Rights Section of the Command to launch a manhunt for the fleeing suspect. On December, 18, the suspect was tracked to a hideout at Agege, while some of the stolen items were recovered from him. During interrogation, Effiong revealed that his real name was Usang Bassey Effiong, not Ben Peters as he made his employer to believe.
The suspect, in his confessional statement, further disclosed that he was able to trace where his master hid his bedroom key. He stole and duplicated the key. Oti said: “It was on October, 23 that Effiong finally decided to break into his master’s bedroom. He disconnected the Close Circuit Television (CCTV), which would have recorded his activities. Immediately he gained access into the room, he stole all the valuables and thereafter drove away with the complainant’s car. Robbing the employer was easy because the former houseboy that the complainant dismissed, named Mathew Johnson Abam, was a member of Effiong’s syndicate.”
