INCREDIBLE! SON LEADS ROBBERS TO RAID DAD’S HOUSE

Tajudeen, to many people in his neighbourhood, does not cut a good image. But not one of his neighbours, even in their wildest imagination, thought he could do what he was eventually caught doing: leading a robbery siege to his father’s house.

Alhaji Moshood Adeolu got what he did not bargain for recently when his own son allegedly led a gang of robbers to raid his house. Adeolu, an itinerant food stuffs merchant, lives with his two wives and children in Ijede area of Ikorodu Local Government Area of Lagos State.

Tajudeen, 25, the third child of the family, is a 200 Level student of a tertiary institution in Osun State. He lives on campus at school, and seldom comes home except during holidays. But two Sundays ago, Tajudeen was allegedly caught leading a team of suspected robbers/cult members to rob his father’s house.

His mother was reportedly divorced by Adeolu in 2003, leaving the young Tajudeen to the care of the two other wives in the house. It was reported that the area where Adeolu and his family live at Ijede had come under robbers’ siege in the last eight months, necessitating the introduction of paid vigilance group to guard it.

It was reported that on Sunday, 14 April, 2013, nevertheless, Adeolu’s house was visited by robbers, while he was away on a business trip as he often did.

On that fateful Sunday, around 11:40p.m, the compound’s guard, identified as Idris Dogo reportedly heard a knock at his gatehouse window and a voice that sounded like that of Tajudeen, his master’s son, urging him to open the gate for him.

Dogo hurried towards the gate to open it, but was pushed back into his apartment by three masked, weapons-wielding young men of Tajudeen’s age. Tajudeen was reportedly not among the three intruders.

Inside Dogo’s room, the three masked robbers reportedly warned him that he would be shot to death if he dared raise any alarm. His mobile telephone handset was reportedly taken away from him, while he was tied to his bed while he was also gagged and blindfolded.

Once the robbers were done with the guard, they reportedly headed for the main building where the wives and all children were already asleep. But while the drama inside Adeolu’s house was going on, Tajudeen, the fourth member of the gang, was lying inside the gutter outside the compound.

He was said to be holding a mobile telephone handset with which he started communicating with his partners-incrime who were inside. The three men also gained access to the main sitting room on the ground floor of the one storey apartment, using a duplicated key to the door.

Once at the main sitting room, the intruders reportedly met two of Tajudeen’s step sisters asleep apparently after marathon movie watching. With cutlasses and axes pointed at their faces, the young women were reportedly ordered to remain silent and take them (the robbers) to their mothers’ rooms.

In less than half an hour, some undisclosed amount of money, expensive jewellery, seven mobile phones handsets and other valuables were seized from the two women and their children.

But unknown to the three robbers inside the building, their fourth member, Tajudeen, had been apprehended by members of the vigilance group patrolling the vicinity.

It was reported that while hiding inside the dry drainage outside his father’s house, some members of the vigilance group, apparently resting under a kiosk not far from the house, watched how the three robbers, hurriedly put on their hoods, entered the compound and how one of them dropped into the gutter. The vigilance group members surely knew that they had job to do that day.

Moving stealthily towards the house, the vigilance members pounced on the fourth robber hiding in the gutter and dragged him out. When he was brought out of the gutter, the cutlass and telephone handset on him were seized.

To the utter bewilderment of the vigilance members, they were jolted when the hood on Tajudeen’s face was removed to see that the leader of the robbery gang was the son of the house owner.

Panting and pleading for mercy, Tajudeen was asked to prevail on his partners inside to abandon their mission. Tajudeen was thus offered back his handset with which he called his partners to abandon their mission as instructed. He did not tell his partners-in-crime that they were already in trouble waters.

The three robbers hearkened to the voice of their ‘master’ but they rushed out of the building with a bag load of seized items from the family members. Outside the compound, the three other members were arrested by the team and the tied household members were promptly set free by the vigilance team. The senior wife of Adeolu prevailed on the vigilance team to allow her call her husband and intimate him of the development.

Speaking on the arrest of the suspect, a member of the vigilance group, identified as Akanni, claimed that Tajudeen is known in the area to be of questionable character, owing to the kind of friends he keeps. “What we saw that day was not too surprising to anyone in the community.

Though the boy had never been apprehended for robbery before, his attitude to life suggests that he is a notorious person. It has been said many times that the boy is a cult member in school and also engages in some criminal activities,” Akanni said.

Nimota, one of Adeolu’s wives, refused to comment on the issue, but insisted that their husband was the only person who could. Yetunde, one of the daughters of the family claimed that she was beaten by the men when she wanted to raise the alarm.

Her words, “I must confess I still feel pains all over my body. I was the first person they woke up at the parlour and when I saw the weapons in their hands, I wanted to shout but they started beating me seriously,” she said.

Efforts to get Adeolu’s phone numbers to talk to him were futile as the wives insisted that journalists should wait for the return of their breadwinner. It was also gathered that, when contacted, Adeolu prevailed on the vigilance members to hold onto the four of them until his return home that morning.

 Culled from National Mirror