Thirty-year-old Kogi State indigene, Pius Ojoka, decided on Wednesday morning that his daily bread was going to come from stealing cables.
But what he did not envisage was the routine patrol of operatives of the Rapid Response Squad of the Lagos State Police Command on the Third Mainland Bridge.
Ojoka, who was arrested as he attempted to steal cables that had been laid as part of the Lagos State Government’s Light Up Lagos Project, fled along with three other suspects when they saw the police.
Saturday PUNCH learnt that during the patrol of an RRS team on the Third Mainland Bridge, they sighted Ojoka and two other suspects crawling out of a manhole on the bridge’s median.
An RRS source told our correspondent that Ojoka was arrested while his two accomplices escaped.
At the RRS Headquarters in Alausa, Ojoka told interrogators that if he was able to cut the cable successfully, he would have made money for that day’s meal.
The suspect said in his statement, “I just relocated from Abuja to Lagos last week. I specialised in stealing utility cables in Abuja and thought it would be far more lucrative in Lagos.
“I was just hungry on Wednesday and I thought the stealing the cables was the fastest way to make money. I thought about many other things, but the cables were the best option.”
According to Ojoka, he lives under a tree on the Lagos–Ibadan Expressway and met his accomplices in the same place.
“But truthfully, we had not been able to cut the cables before RRS caught me. I always sold the cables I stole in Abuja to one man outside Kaduna,” he said.
The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Superintendent of Police, Dolapo Badmos, who confirmed his arrest, said that the state would not tolerate vandalism and sabotage of government’s efforts.
The suspect has been transferred to the Department of Criminal Investigation, Yaba, for further investigatgion.
