University drop-out, one other nabbed for Uber car robbery

Two persons - Gideon Bamidele Moshood, 19, and Afeez Anifowose, 20 – have been arrested while attempting to snatch a Toyota Corolla car from its owner with a toy gun.

The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Imohinmi Edgal, said the hoodlums had boarded the vehicle armed with a toy gun. In the car, Moshood was said to have grabbed the driver by the neck. The driver lost control of the car, which hit the kerb and somersaulted. The driver then raised an alarm which attracted the attention of policemen at a nearby check-point.

Moshood, who claimed to be 17 years old and not 19 as the police stated, said he was a student of Caleb University and that he dropped out of school in 200 level.

“I needed money to pay my tuition, which my dad, a top politician in the PDP, had refused to pay after he discovered I smoke. It was my friend, T Boy, who instigated me into buying a gun. I bought the toy gun yesterday at the Surulere Shopping Mall, so this morning I went out with my friend to operate.

“The driver of an Uber cab we had boarded said we would pay N4,500. I told him we didn’t have cash but I had my ATM card and I would pay him at an ATM point after I had withdrawn cash. But he refused. So I told him to move on that I had the money, whereas I didn’t have it. When we got to Owode Onirin on the Ikorodu expressway, I pulled out the gun and held him by the neck.

“I asked him to stop the car. He was scared and swerved, losing control of the car which made it to somersault three times, with us in it. When the car stopped, we came down quickly afraid it would explode. It was at that juncture that some touts held us and invited the police, who arrested us,” he said.