Five security guards working in a Chinese Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) at Iton in Ogun State, have been arrested by the police.

Also arrested is an alleged stolen goods receiver.

They are currently held in police custody for alleged conspiracy and theft of two 150 KVA Marapco power generating sets, a vibrating machine and several other items belonging to the company.

It was gathered that, the suspects identified as Mohammed Usman, Onomza Sani, Taminu Justice, Ayinde Okesade, Seun Okesade and Olaniyan David, were arrested by the operatives of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) of the Inspector-General Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris.

Investigations revealed they were arrested in the home of the alleged receiver of the goods, Olaniya David, in Ota area of Ogun State.

It was gathered that Idris received a petition from the company detailing how their security guards abandoned their construction site after stealing properties valued at N20 million.  The IGP, acting on the petition, detailed the operatives of IRT, headed by Abba Kyari, a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) to track down the suspects.

Sources revealed that,a team of operatives were deployed by Kyari to Sango Ota.

They were said to have successfully identified and arrested David the alleged receiver in his church, while he was praying and and confessed during interrogations that he had bought several items from the security guards, including bags of cements and iron rods.

According to a police source, he admitted being the link man between the buyer of the power generating sets and the security guard.

 He was said to have told the police on interrogation that, “I bought several bags of cement from Mohammed the head of the security guards and I used them in building my own house and I usually pay him N1500 per bag against the market price of N2500. I also bought some iron rods from him which I also used in my building, but I ran into trouble when I brought one of my friends to buy his company power generating set. I didn’t know that his company will get the police involved.  So, I was arrested and I led the police to arrest the security guards and we recovered the power generating sets”.

It was also learned that the five guards were all hiding at David’s house at the time he was arrested.

They were said to have spent six days in David’s house waiting on the man who David sold the power generating sets and the vibrating machines to bring their money, when the police showed up and apprehended all of them.

Mohammed, the leader of the guards who allegedly masterminded the theft blamed the buyer of the stolen power generating set for their arrest.  He lamented that the buyer refused to pay them their money, adding it was what aided the police in apprehending them.  “We had no intention to steal the two power generating, vibrating machine and cables, but David’s brother lured us into it.  What we invited him to buy from the site was scrap irons which were littered around the site, but when he came with his trucks, he saw the generator, a vibrating machine and  some cables and he insisted on buying them all.  He then offered to pay us N1.4 million for the goods and the amount was so tempting.  I called all my colleagues and explained, they accepted, then we allowed him to carry all that he wanted and we followed him out of the site.  We alighted at David’s place to wait for our money and he refused to show up for six days. if not for David’s brother who delayed our money, I would have been long gone before the company realized that their properties were missing.”

Narrating how he masterminded the theft, Mohammed, who is a native of Adamawa State, allegedly confessed that: “I came to Lagos in February 2018 and I worked for the company as an iron bender. I wasn’t the only person stealing and selling the company’s cement and David was one of my customers. We became very close because he paid me regularly, he never owed like other customers.  I was using the proceeds from the cement to sustain myself. I was being paid N30,000 monthly as my salary,  but after working for few months, the company started downsizing and I was sacked as an iron bender.  In August, I begged to be reinstated and I was offered a job as a security guard. I accepted the offer.

Sometime in September, things became very hard, then I contacted David and told him that I have some scraps on the site to sell that he should look for a buyer.  He brought a greedy man who he called his brother and the man got me into trouble,” he lamented.

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