I regret the day I went to rob that woman. The moment that woman screamed when I pointed that local gun at her, I knew my days as a robber was over. That woman is my nemesis; women are the best targets and still, they are the ones who can easily get you caught.
You are surprised that I speak good English? My story is funny in a way. My name is Joshua Uduak and I am 28 years old. I am also a polytechnic graduate of accountancy. Yes, I finished my HND 4 four years ago but I did not serve because I was posted to Borno State, as you already know, there is war raging in that part of the country and nobody wants to die, so I didn’t go for my posting.
How did I join this gang? It’s from drinking at the joint down our street. I met them at the joint, we talk about politics, about people stealing government money, about women and about not having money. That’s how we became friends.
One day, they told me that they had a job for me. At that time, though I was working as a cashier at a fast food joint but the money was just too small. So when they told me I could make good money without sweat, I jumped at the opportunity. After all, all those who steal Nigeria’s money, are our people not hailing them as leaders today?
Anyway, it was Arinze who gathered us as a gang. He is also the one who gives us guns and charms that we use to rob people and not get caught. Arinze gives us something to drink, it’s a concoction he gets from his village. Whenever we are about to go for any operation, we just drink it and no matter the time of day that we rob, nobody has ever caught us until now.
And we were caught this time around because Arinze was not around, he went to the village and he even told us not to do any operation without him, but we ran out of money and boys were hungry, so we just wanted to do a small operation to feed that’s when kasala burst.
There’s a woman we have been trailing for some days, she has a shop at a shopping mall around Ajah side. So that day, we just waited for her to close, as she was drawing the iron door to close the shop, we surrounded her, all four of us and I pointed the gun at her to just quietly give us her bag but the woman screamed and screamed and this was really confusing to me because, usually, people we do that to will just cooperate.
This one did not, o. She has a loud voice and was just screaming and before I could even blast the gun, people surrounded me and started slapping me, they caught Kelvin too but AK and Chris escaped. Before I even knew what was happening, I saw blood everywhere. Coming from my head, my hand, everywhere was blood. As God will have it, policemen just came and scattered the crowd, they removed us from the people, I saw Kelvin, his face was swollen and he too had blood everywhere from the beating they gave us that day.
So when we got here, police now began to ask us questions and me, I was ready to confess everything, even Kelvin, when he saw I was cooperating with police, he too cooperated. I told them that yes, we have been doing this thing for years.
Then the police searched my pockets and found my phone. They saw some video of our raid because when we rob people in their houses, we rape the girls as well and we videotape it and tell the girls that we will post it on Facebook if they open their mouths. Many of the girls are even secondary school girls, so sometimes when I think of this, I feel bad that I am one of those who rape small girls and these girls are always afraid to talk to even their parents, so there are some we rape more than once, sef.
Anyway, from all the things they heard from us, the police went and arrested Wale and Amusan at a secret hideout that we have. So, they too have started talking. It remains Arinze now. Arinze went to the village to see his mother, they said she is sick. I don’t know maybe they will catch him or not, as for me, this is the end of robbery for me.
I regret all of these things and am just begging everyone to mercy for me. I will not do it again.
-Compiled by Peju Akande