The police in Osun State on Friday paraded an armed robbery suspect, Godwin Emmanuel, for allegedly stealing an officer’s phone in a patrol van conveying him to the command.

In his confessional statement, the suspect who admitted stealing the phone, explained that he took the phone into the cell without the police knowing, in order to tell his people about his whereabouts because they didn’t know he was in police custody.

The 23-year-old said, “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 it is a police phone. I beg make una no vex. 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. I have been here for about two months. They later came to search me in the cell where I was and discovered the phone on me. Please tell them to forgive me. I won’t do it again.”

The command’s Public Relations Officer, Yemisi Opalola, during the parade said Mr Godwin was nabbed with 28-year-old Olajide Kareem and 33-year-old Mike Emmanuel for allegedly robbing residents and sexually assaulting a 65-year-old woman on the Ilesa-Osu Expressway, when she was taking her husband to the hospital.

The state police spokesperson alleged that the suspects, notorious for robbing “motorists and passengers of their belongings,” confessed about one of the incidents involving them.

She said, “A bus driver was shot in his leg but was subsequently rushed to Seventh-day Adventist Hospital in Ile-Ife where he received treatment. Consequently, Olajide was arrested in the bush and he confessed that he was a member of a five-man gang of armed robbers who came from the Ikorodu area in Lagos State to perpetrate their acts in Osun State.’’

She said intelligence-driven investigation and tactical operations led the Anti-Kidnapping Squad to Majidun in Ikorodu, where Mike Emmanuel and Godwin Emmanuel were arrested, after which they confessed to the offences during interrogation.