Liverjohn Acheme, at 22 years old, is no doubt a young man. He also nurses the dream of schooling abroad. But how is he going about realising his dream?
Liverjohn Acheme and four others have just had their gang busted by operatives of the Enugu State Special Anti Robbery Squad. The gang, according to the police, specialised in a range of criminal activities ranging from car snatching through burglary.
However, it is only 22 years old Acheme who is now cooling his feet in police custody while his cohort are at large. The gang had reportedly been terrorising Enugu State for a long time now before the long arm of the law eventually caught up with them after a tip-off. Penultimate week, a detachment of anti- robbery policemen reportedly stormed the robbers’ hideout in Enugu city centre around 10:00p.m. At the time of rounding them up, Acheme was reportedly in possession of a high calibre gun with which he had allegedly carried out a car snatching operation early that day.
After some members of the public tipped the police off on the activities of the ‘strange’ five men in their locality, the law enforcement agents immediately swooped on the area.
Sensing danger, four members of the gang reportedly took their heels while Acheme engaged the law cops in a gun battle. The Kogi State-born suspected robber, however, soon bowed to the superior firepower of the policemen and he was immediately arrested.
Speaking on his arrest, a senior police officer who does not want his name in print told Saturday Mirror that the gang had held Enugu residents by the jugular for a long time before they were eventually apprehended and their activities nip in the bud.
“This man you see here was a devil when he handles a gun. When we learnt that his gang members were hiding after they had carried out an operation, we headed for their hideout.
Upon sighting our men, they opened fire and we had to give it back to them. In the process, four of his gang managed to escape while we were able to arrest him right on the spot,” the officer said.
But, Acheme first denied being a robber and claimed that he was only a pickpocket. However, after assurances that he would be freed if he confessed to his crime, Acheme said, “It is true that we went to rob that day. But I was not the only one. We were four in number. Others had fled and I was the only one caught after a shootout.”
Asked when he had been in the crime, Acheme claimed that he was a first time robber maintained that he was lured into the crime by Onbe Okey said to be at large. Acheme claimed the said Okey had assured him that with a single operation, he would be able to make enough money to pursue his educational career overseas. “I did not set out at first to be a robber.
It was Okey that asked me to join them in carrying their bags for one operation he was going that night. In the beginning, Okey never told me what we were going to do. What he said was that if I was able to go on a trip with them, I would make enough money to use for my studies overseas. That was why I went with him. I did not know that they were going to rob,” he said.
Acheme also claimed that it was when they got to the venue of their operation that Okey told him where and why they were there. But Enugu State Police Command spokesman Ebere Amaraizu dismissed Acheme’s claims saying that the suspected robber was among the notorious robbers who had been terrorising the metropolis for a long time now.
The police spokesman therefore assured residents of the state to now sleep with their two eyes closed as the Commissioner of Police in the state, Adamu Muhammed, is poised to rid the state of criminals
