The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps has arrested a 23-year-old man identified as Quadri Qudus who allegedly stole 21 telephones from admission seekers in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital.
Quadri was alleged to have stolen the phones from the university admission applicants while they were writing the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination at a Computer-based test center in Ilorin on July 5, 2022.
Quadri who pretended as a face mask seller at the center acted to be a Good Samaritan and collected the phones from the candidates, since they were not allowed to enter the examination centre with the phone.
However, before the students could finish writing their examination papers, the suspect had disappeared from the center with the telephone sets put in his care.
Parading Quadri alongside two other suspects at the state Command headquarters of the NSCDC on Friday, the Command’s spokesperson, Olasunkanmi Ayeni, said that the suspect fell into the hands of the operatives of NSCDC and was arrested in Ilorin after about one month of committing the alleged crime.
Ayeni said, “Quadri Qudus pretended to be selling facemasks at a JAMB examination centre and the student out of trust put the phones in his custody and he ran away with their phones. He was eventually caught by our men in Ilorin.”
Speaking with reporters, Quadri denied running away with the phones saying that the phones were stolen from him and he ran away out of fear of being apprehended and lynched by their owners after they might have finished writing their papers and discovered that their phones were missing.
He claimed, “The phones were actually stolen from where I kept them. I ran away out of fear of what would happen to me.
“I had to run away for my dear life before the owners came out of the examination centre because they would have beaten and lynched me if they learned that their phones have been stolen.”
Two other suspects paraded by the NSCDC included a 55-year-old security man, Arowolo Ayodeji, who allegedly had carnal knowledge of his 19-year-old daughter.
Ayeni said that the suspect was allegedly having carnal knowledge of his daughter since she was seven years old.
“Arowolo Ayodeji’s report was brought to the notice of the command through the Kwara state Ministry of Social Welfare. The ministry and the command’s Gender Unit are collaborating together. It was a good Samaritan that reported the case to the ministry of social welfare before the case was brought here,” the NSCDC spokesman said.
Ayeni said that the suspects was apprehended at Ijero Ekiti in Ijero local government area of Ekiti state and brought to Ilorin where he last committed the alleged act.
“The man was said to have been molesting the girl while she was seven years old. It means that crime has been on for 12 years running”, Ayeni said.
Ayodeji, while answering questions from newsmen, blamed his action on the work of the devil saying that the devil vicariously lured him to commit the crime.
The suspect who confirmed that he is the biological father of the teenager said that the marriage between him and the girl’s mom crashed when the girl was two years old.
Another suspect, Emmanuel Sowole, was described by Ayeni as a serial house breaker who had been arrested several times in the state.
Ayeni said, “Emmanuel has been a serial house breaker, his cases have been brought here several times and on different occasions he has been sent to remand, but he seems not to want to change from his act.
“The offence that brought him here is the breaking into a house in Ilorin and carted away some vehicle parts.” (Punch)
