Written by Oluwatoyin Malik Sunday, 13 November 2011
The Oyo State Police Command recently arrested four serving policemen working with Force CID, Alagbon who had been coming to the state, on the pretext that they were working on petitions, to carry out indiscriminate arrest and extortion of people they tagged Yahoo boys. Oluwatoyin Malik reports.
MENTION the name, Alhaji Razak Olatunji, and many may not be conscious of the name but once there is a mention of Alhaji man-lover, what would follow it would be torrents of comments, mostly negative. This is because of the image the owner of the name had cut for himself. Alhaji Razak had been allegedly notorious for going after people he tagged yahoo boys to extort them. However, he was able to succeed in his illegalities with the assistance of some serving police officers with whom he usually went after his targets.
Alhaji Razak’s modus operandi with the policemen was said to be such that made people to wonder whether they were armed robbers hiding under police uniform and using police weapons to dispossess members of the public of their belongings while pretending to arrest them for fraudulent activities.
It was further gathered that many people had fallen victims of Alhaji Razak’s gang, with their mobile phones, laptops, cash and even car impounded. One of the victims who spoke with Sunday Tribune under the condition of anonymity said his car is still with Alhaji’s group which they told him they had handed over to the EFCC in Lagos.
Alhaji Razak had allegedly perpetrated his criminal acts in different parts of the South Western geopolitical zone, posing as informant for the police and EFCC, and joining the policemen in arresting ‘suspects’. He was said to have been to Ogbomoso, Malaysia, South Africa, Dubai, Ife, Ibadan and other places and had been making a lot of money from this. They were said to usually present a fake petition and warrant of arrest. However, his cup became full on Saturday October 29, 2011 when he was arrested with the policemen working with him by policemen from Monitoring Unit of the Oyo State Police Command.
According to information gathered, on that day, Alhaji Razak had arrived Ibadan on Friday, October 28 with four policemen who left their duty posts at Force Criminal Investigation Department, Alagbon, Lagos and three other civilians. Armed with guns, they had allegedly stormed one Segola Guest House at Apata area and broke into one of the rooms where a guest lodged. After ransacking the room, they were said have robbed one Richard Adebayo, alleged of being a fraudster popularly referred to as Yahoo boy, of his United States passport, a Gucci wallet, handsets, laptop, N35,000 and $1,650.
A while after they first left the hotel, the group had reportedly returned to the hotel based on information they got that the real money they were after had not been got from Richard, but they met more than they bargained for when people who were around the hotel area formed a mob and were prepared to burn Alhaji man-lover’s peugeot 406 car with its occupants.
Acting on information, operatives from the monitoring unit went to the hotel to appraise the situation and also prevent mob action. By the time the policemen got there, Alhaji Rasak’s car was reported to have been surrounded by the mob while he wound up the glass and locked the door from inside to prevent people from physically assaulting him.
It was gathered that when the police from Monitoring Unit got there, they showed him their identity cards and asked him to wind the glass down. He did and one of the occupants of the car attempted to use the opportunity to escape through the back. However, the vigilant crowd noticed this and attempted to mob him. As the policemen were trying to save the situation, the policemen from Lagos who parked the bus they brought from Lagos some metres away, started firing shots at the crowd. They also used the opportunity to escape but were pursued by the police who also contacted Apata Division to help in stopping the fleeing policemen. They were eventually arrested and disarmed and had been undergoing interrogation at the Monitoring unit. The commercial bus painted in Lagos colour with registration number XJ 212 EPE which they also used for the operation was impounded along with Alhaji Razak’s Peugeot 406 car with registration number TX 423 AAA.
However, Alhaji Razak, in an interview with Sunday Tribune believed that he had not done anything wrong as he was only giving information to the police about yahoo boys and their activities. Giving an insight into his background, Razak said he attended Eko Boys High School till 1989 and Luba Technical School, Ijebu Ode where he specialised in Catering and finished in 1992. According to 40-year-old Razak, “I didn’t do any bad activities and I don’t know whether they (the policemen) were doing illegal duty. I started working with the police in 2010.
“Whenever I got an information about fraudsters, I would give it to the police and whenever they were ready, they would call me and tell me they had a petition concerning the people I mentioned, and I would join them to go after them. I never knew who wrote the petition, they showed me the petition, and I saw that the petition was approved”.
When asked about the number of the people arrested in the past through his information, Alhaji Razak said they were only two people. He denied going to Malaysia to arrest people, saying that he believed he has the freedom to travel to any part of the continent. “Nobody attacked me in Malaysia. I went there on my own and returned to Nigeria”.
On what happened in Ogbomoso, Alhaji Razak told Sunday Tribune that he received an information from someone about some boys were involved in fraud. “I released the information to the police and we later went for the arrest. It happened this year but I can not recollect the exact month or date. The police got the people with the exhibits and the police took them to Lagos. I don’t know the amount they collected from the boys arrested because they did not disclose it to me but the police gave me N100,000 which was handed over to me by Mr Ernest. They just called me that they have finished the job and that I should come and collect my share which we had agreed to be 10 per cent of whatever they received.
“The next one we did together was the one that led to our arrest. I don’t stay in Ibadan but got the information about the person we came after through a contact. I informed my usual contact within the police in persons of Mr Ernest, Mr Abass, Mr Ifeanyi and Mr Boniface from Force CID, Alagbon. They came on their own and called me that they were already in Ibadan, that I should join them on Friday October 28. We met at Challenge area and I went to show them the places where the fraudsters were that night. The policemen collected their laptops, money and phones, they also took six suspects to Iyaganku Division to be detained. We were in Ibadan till the following day and worked through the night.
“The last place we went was that Segola Hotel around 8a.m. and that was where problem started. We went after two suspects there. When we got there, we met one of them at the reception and arrested him. We asked of the second person and he showed us his room. We met two people in the room. The police took our target’s laptop, some money found in his trousers which he put on the chair and his phones.They also took Richard with them but I was in my own car. About 40 minutes after, we were around Iyaganku when someone called that Richard’s US passport and Gucci purse were missing.
“We turned back and drove towards the hotel but by the time we got there we met a lot of boys and they started beating me. One of them was holding a gun and they collected my money, chain and wrist watch. They were also stoning the vehicle the police brought which was parked some distance from where my own car was. May be because of the stoning, the policemen from Lagos started shooting and left the place. After about 10 minutes, I saw a man but I didn’t know he was a policeman. He introduced himself and that was how I was brought to Monitoring Unit at police headquarters, Eleyele”. Sunday Tribune however gathered that the ‘bail’ fee the gang used to collect from their victims was always in millions of naira while about 15 suspects were detained at Iyaganku and Sanyo Divisions that Friday night. It was learnt that whenever Alhaji Razak, the policemen on illegal duty arrested their ‘suspects’, they would take them to the police division close to the scene of their operation for detention. They were said to have got the copperation of the Divisions for temporary detention of their ‘suspects’ by flashing their identity cards and making them to believe that they were in Oyo State to effect the arrest based on the petition received at the Force CID, Alagbon.
When asked why he would invite policemen from Lagos State when the perceived crime was perpetrated in Oyo State and even he himself is an indigene of Ogbomoso, Alhaji Razak replied: “The petition I was shown had a covering letter addressed to the Inspector General of Police. I also live in Lagos State, but I once gave the police in Oyo State some information about the fraudsters in 2010 but I did not like the way I was treated. On the latest outing, I was not promised anything but I knew that I would get something after the operation.”
Leaders of students of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso besieged the Monitoring Unit on Wednesday November 2 to see Alhaji Razak, just as they rejoiced at his arrest. Speaking with Sunday Tribune, the spokesperson for the students, one Olawale Fadairo who said he was speaking on behalf of over 25,000 students of the Institution proclaimed a kind of fatwa on Razak. “we don’t want Alhaji Razak again. He has been coming to terrorise and intimidate our fellow students. Several steps had been taken by our student leaders. We held a congress sometime ago and it was resolved that the student leaders, in conjunction with the university management should wage war against Alhaji Razak, and parts of our resolutions at the congress were forwarded to the appropriate quarters like the Inspector General of Police, Oyo State Commissioner of Police, speakers of Oyo and Osun States of Assembly etc.
“We are happy that Alhaji has met his waterloo and we are happy with what the police in Oyo State have done. Alhaji Razak had been operating illegally on our campus and had been impersonating the police. His activities started since 2008. Whenever he came, he used to break into hostels in connivance with some policemen, fully armed, to arrest innocent students. He used to come in the night from 10p.m. upward and if his tartget did not open the door, he would forcefully open the door or enter through the ceiling. In fact, the man has been confirmed to practise homosexualism. He used to claim that he was working for the police as an informant. What we students want to know now is the relationship between this man and the police and if it is appropriate for a civilian to lead policemen on operations. I believe that this is a slap on the face of the Nigeria Police.
“It is not that we are in support of criminality by anyone, including students. If it were to be the police, backed by arrest order and search warrant, who had come to arrest the students, we would have been happy because that is also part of our struggle – to sanitise the society. What we are now fighting against is illegality and we want quick action to be taken against him.
“As students, we have may prayers: We want the police to charge him for impersonation and burglary because he used to break into hostels and would take away phones, wrist watches, laptops and money. He had also paraded himself as an EFCC official, so the EFCC should also charge him to court for corrupt act and impersonation. Many of his victims were afraid to come out because they believed he had the backing og the police. Even there were rumours after his recent arrest that he was released on Tuesday November 1, and that was why we came to see for ourselves. The students believe in the police and it will be a good improvement on police image if he is prosecuted.
Sunday Tribune gathered that the policemen involved were undergoing orderly room trial as it had been confirmed that the petition they said they were acting on had been found to be fake.
The Police Public Relations Officer in Oyo State, while confirming the arrests, told Sunday Tribune that investigations were still ongoing on the case and it would premature to give any statement when the police had not concluded their work.
http://tribune.com.ng/sun/features/5562-policemen-alhaji-in-police-net-for-illegal-arrest-extortion-i-was-just-an-informant-alhaji I'm imploring Nairaland moderators to please get this to the front page. This bastard's arrest must be publicised to everyone. Alhaji, a.k.a Ga.y has ruined so many properties and lives. 1 Like 
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i learnt his legs have been broken. he still deserves more damage to be done. you are talking about laptops and phones. i heard he has broken down fences of people's houses with bulldozers (just to gain access), carried away some vehicles with hayabs (if owner is not around), made millions from boys paying into his account just by phone calls, arrested innocent people who might just look like yahoo boys( because they own cars), he has built a house that the fence is so high you can't see the roof, he went to malaysia to try and make arrests but was driven back (to show you how desperate) and the list keeps going on. I'm sure his case would never reach a courthouse. Most likely, dem yahoo boys would pay off the police to which he is in their custody and give that guy a wonderful yet mysterious jungle justice. such as tie his knots with a quadrupled fish line to a Dodge Charger SRT8 (fast five tinzz, viperautos would make that happen) and then drag him from lagos to abuja and dump him at the Police HQ (ofcourse i won't mind driving).
quoting this great id-iot: “Whenever I got an information about fraudsters, I would give it to the police and whenever they were ready, they would call me and tell me they had a petition concerning the people I mentioned, and I would join them to go after them. I never knew who wrote the petition, they showed me the petition, and I saw that the petition was approved”.
Does he think nigerians are stupid? some others in the force still need to be dealt with. Nearly all of them on the express use wrong name tags and identity numbers on their uniforms. God help us all. |
