A state High court has re­manded a staff of the National Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Taiwo Babalola in prison over alleged involvement in robbery.
Babalola who gave his civil defence number as 46548 cur­rently serving with the Kogi State command headquarters, Lokoja, along with two others; Kolawole Samson and Ainoko Paul are currently facing trial on an alleged armed robbery case which took place at Lokogoma village, Lokoja, Kogi State.
The victim of the alleged rob­bery, Mr Kadiri Mukailu told the court that on December 9, 2016, three suspected armed robbers stormed his residence and forcefully collected the keys to his Toyota car and drove it away.
Mukailu said the car which is yet to be recovered was carted away by the armed robbers along with his UBA ATM card, two handsets, a wrist watch, ten pieces of cloth valued at N30,000 and his original ve­hicle license.
Mukailu further told the court that during the robbery incident which lasted for about two hours, he was able to look at the faces of the armed rob­bers as there was full electricity in his area that day and the rob­bers wore no masks.
He added that he cannot for­get the identity of one of them; Kolawale Samson who had scattered teeth and wielded a big gun and called himself the “MOPOL”.
Mukailu also told the court that the attention of his family members was drawn when on January 8, 2017, the suspected armed robbers returned to his vicinity. He said he immedi­ately drew the attention of the local vigilantes who condoned off the premises before the po­lice were alerted and arrested the suspects.
But Babalola in his own de­fense at hearing said he is a neighbour to the claimant at Lokogoma village, but denied being part of the robbery.
He told the court that he was in his house on December 9, 2016 when three men in mufti who claimed to be policemen accosted him and told him they were trailing some criminals whom they claimed entered his neighbour’s house, “As a secu­rity officer I asked if I could fol­low them but they declined my request. I even reported the in­cidence to my superiors in the office the following day.” - The Authority