‘How my driver stole my car 24 hours after resuming duty’

A middle-aged man, Jude Nnabuife, has narrated how his driver ran away with his car a day after he employed him and attempted to sell the vehicle but ran out of luck.

Nnabuife, a resident of Gwarinpa, Abuja, said he employed Matthew Agbe, 30, through ‘normal recruitment process’ on October 6, and that he resumed duty on October 9 but was shocked when he disappeared with the car the following day.

“He told my other driver to give him the key to my Kia Cerato car on the pretext that he wanted to go and wash it and a few minutes later, his phone was switched off.

“I immediately contacted the Gwarinpa Divisional Police (Abuja) and subsequently the SARS Anti-Car theft unit. On the 6th day, SARS contacted me to say the car has been recovered and the suspect arrested,” he said. Corroborating the narration, the Investigating Police Officer, ASP Segun Ajayi, of the SARS Anti-Car Theft Unit, said the suspect was arrested while attempting to sell the car.

“He wanted to sell the car for N200,000 at Apo Mechanic Village. This is a car valued at N3.5 million. The buyer pretended to be interested and called us. When we got there, his (the suspect’s) loads were already in the car as he was planning to run away after collecting the money.

“Everything is contained in his confessional statement,” he added.

The suspect, however, said he did not steal the car but used it to carry passengers and police arrested him.

“I used the car to go and buy something and on my way back, I decided to carry passengers to make small money for myself. Police arrested me that since it is a private car, I did not have the permit to use it as a commercial vehicle. They detained the car for six days until I was able to bail it from them after contacting my guarantor.

“After I bailed the car, I took it to Apo Mechanic Village and got drunk. Taskforce and SARS arrested me two days later,” he said.

Asked why he did not make effort to contact his employer and owner of the car or return the car immediately he bailed it from the police, he said, “it was late and I was drunk.”

The suspect was among 37 others paraded by the Commissioner of Police for the FCT Command, Sadiq Bello, on Tuesday.