Four Robbers Jailed For Terrorizing Yola Keke NAPEP Passengers

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Four members of a notorious group, Shila Boys have been jailed for terrorizing residents of the Adamawa State capital, Yola.

The youths were arraigned for using commercial Keke NAPEP to carry out robbery operations.

The four members of the youth robbery gang were sentenced to five years each for their act.

Three of the convicts: Usman Ahmed, Abdullahi Salihu, and Hamza Abdullahi were said to specialise in driving and robbing passengers using a Keke NAPEP leased to them by the fourth convict, Aliyu Ishaku.

They are all residents of a community called NEPA in Jimeta, Yola North Local Government Area, from where they take their operations round the expansive twin Yola city comprising Jimeta and Yola Town.

Details of the case have it that while the first three convicts were arrested when a mob caught up with them following their last operation and they found themselves rounded up by the police, the fourth convict, Aliyu Ishaku, got picked up a while later.

It was also gathered that the Keke NAPEP which the suspects use for their robbery activities was stolen at the scene of their arrest while a mob and the police were busy trying to apprehend them

It was learnt that when Aliyu Ishaku heard that the Keke NAPEP had been stolen, he called its real owner, Ibrahim Aliyu and lied that the Keke NAPEP had been impounded by the Police CID.

This prompted Ibrahim Aliyu to go with Aliyu Ishaku to the CID office at the Police State Headquarters, where the first three suspects were incidentally being held.

When the three saw Ishaku at the CID, they alerted the police that Ishaku used to lease a tricycle to them to carry out operations in return for N8,000 daily.

Ishaku was then arrested and taken alongside the first three suspects to the Chief Magistrate Court 5, where Magistrate Nafisatu Bala convicted and sentenced the suspects to five years in prison.

The judge, however, gave the convicts an option of N60,000 fine each and also ordered that compensation of N1 million be paid to Ibrahim Aliyu, owner of the tricycle used by the convicts which has been stolen.

Earlier on arraignment on the 10th October 2021 by the prosecutor, Seargent Ahmed Abubakar, the convicts confessed to having snatched five handsets from their victims.

Aliyu Ishaku who operated the leased tricycle belonging to Ibrahim Aliyu, was said to have in turn hired the tricycle to the three other convicts to carry out ‘Shila’ operations.

Allegedly, after every operation, the convicts paid N8,000 to Ishaku as daily returns for the hired tricycle, with Ishaku knowing that they were using the tricycle to steal from unsuspecting passengers.