A 23-year-old armed robbery suspect, Godwin Emmanuel, confessed to stealing a police officer’s phone while being transported in a patrol van to the Osun State Police Command.
His admission follows an incident that occurred after his arrest on allegations of robbery and assault along the Ilesa-Osu Expressway in Osun State.
Emmanuel, along with two accomplices—28-year-old Olajide Kareem and 33-year-old Mike Emmanuel—was accused of targeting residents and even sexually assaulting a 65-year-old woman, who was accompanying her husband to the hospital at the time of the attack.
Parading the suspects in front of the press, Osun State Police Command Spokesperson, Yemisi Opalola, detailed the severity of the crimes allegedly committed by the trio.
“The three suspects rob motorists and passengers of their belongings,” Opalola stated, recounting that during one incident, a bus driver was shot in the leg. He was later taken to Seventh-day Adventist Hospital in Ile-Ife for treatment.
The police captured Olajide Kareem shortly after the incident while he attempted to escape into the bush, where he reportedly confessed to being part of a five-man armed robbery gang from Ikorodu, Lagos, who traveled to Osun State to carry out these attacks. The other two suspects, Godwin and Mike Emmanuel, were apprehended subsequently.
Godwin Emmanuel, speaking to reporters, confessed not only to the robbery charges but also to a peculiar additional offense.
“I was arrested for armed robbery. When I was being transported to the Police Command in Osogbo, inside the police patrol van that I was conveyed, I stole a phone. I don’t know that it is a police phone. I beg to make una no vex,” he explained.
Attempting to justify his actions, Godwin continued, “I told the police not to be angry with me. I don’t know when I did that. I took the phone into the police cell without them knowing. I removed the SIM card, I want to use the phone to call my people because they don’t know I have been arrested for armed robbery.”
The suspect, who claims to have been in detention for two months, said he was caught with the phone during a search inside his cell. “Please tell them to forgive me. I won’t do it again,” he pleaded.
