‘HOW MILITARY TRAINING AIDED ME IN ARMED ROBBERY’

With military experience, one Musa Mohammed successfully led his three-man gang to operate in Kano and Kaduna states until weeks ago when he was nabbed by the police in Kano.
An indigene of Borno State, Musa Mohammed, enlisted into the Nigerian Army in 1998 with the number 98NA 462256. After a few years in service, he was sent to Sierra Leone on a peace-keeping mission.
With the amount of hard currency he returned to the country, Mohammed went on ‘absence without official leave’ (AWOL). He left his duty post at the 2nd Mechanised Division of the Nigerian Army in Ibadan, Oyo State, without permission from his superior officers. 
Speaking at the Kano State Police Command, the runaway soldier said he left the army unceremoniously to further his education and not for armed robbery.
“In 2001, I went on peace-keeping operation in Sierra Leone and we came back happy with money. Before we left for the operation, we were trained at the 2nd Mechanised Division in Ibadan. It was a-10 week training, and we were combined with American soldiers. I left the army on AWOL in order to further my education and not for robbery,” he said.
Mohammed added that immediately after he left the army, he enrolled at the Sir Kashim Ibrahim College of Education, Maiduguri, for a National Certificate of Education (NCE) programme.
“I studied Primary Education and Social Studies at the college and immediately I completed my NCE programme, I joined the Nigerian Navy in 2010 and was posted to the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) in Kaduna,” he said.
He said in the course of his duties in the Nigerian Navy, he had a disagreement with one of his colleagues who knew he left the army on AWOL.
“Following the disagreement, he went and told my boss that I was dismissed from the army. And the tradition in the military does not permit a dismissed personnel to serve in any other arm of service and that was why I was dismissed from the navy,” Mohammed said.
He said shortly after he was dismissed he established a phone accessories shop in Kano in order to cater for his newly married wife.
“When the profit I was getting from the business was not enough to cater for me, I delved into robbery. My situation was compounded by my inability to get employment with my NCE certificate,” the robber said.
He stated that it was while roaming round in search of a teaching job that one of his friends introduced him to armed robbery.
When we went for the first operation, we stole a car. I did not follow him to where he sold the car. He phoned me that he sold it for N120, 000 and that my own share is half of the money.
“He did not give me the money, instead he was dodging me. When I realised his game plan, I phoned him that I have a very big operation that he should get set with his gun. When we met in Zaria in preparation for the operation, I collected the gun and we went for prayers in a mosque and I took off with it. I called him later and informed him that I have taken the gun for my N60, 000,” Mohammed added.
“I used the gun for two operations, one in Zaria and the other one in Kano. I’m regretting doing this business of armed robbery because it has landed me in trouble. I’m in police custody because I was arrested for robbery,” he lamented.
Parading the suspect, Kano police spokesperson, ASP Magaji Musa Majia, said Mohammed was arrested through the GSM phone he forgot in one of the houses he raided in Kano.
“Following a distress call by residents of Sharada area of Kano state, our men swung into action but before they got to the area, the armed robbery gang led by the ex-soldier had left,” Majia explained.
“Luckily for us, the ex-soldier forgot one of the handsets inside one of the houses they raided. It was the handset that we used in tracking him. Musa was dismissed by the army authorities but he later joined the navy and now he is into armed robbery. It was when the naval authorities discovered that he was a dismissed army personnel that they also sacked him,” he added.
The police spokesman said when the suspect was arrested, they recovered a pistol and an army uniform from him.
On the gang’s modus operandi, he said members of the gang robbed at gunpoint and that “they do not gain access to people’s houses through the gate or main entrance, instead they jump the fence.”
He said the suspect has since confessed to the crime but that they are yet to complete investigation on the case, adding that: “As soon as we finish the investigation, we will charge him to court accordingly. We are still trailing the two other members of the gang who are from Zaria.”
Source: Daily Trust