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• Cowry bead gives burglar away, as wife discovers illegal pistol hidden by husband
By Funke Busari
His name is John Agor. He claimed he had been stealing while living with his parents. Now that he is far away from home, his thieving skills had been elevated to higher levels before the long arm of the law caught up with him and two other suspects recently.
He was caught after allegedly breaking into the shop of a trader, Mrs. Adekola Demilade Ayodamilola of Ijiri Alamo Ilogbo, Ota in Ogun State.
The prime suspect, John Agor, 25, claims he hails from Ogoja in Cross Rivers State like his friends who all live in Musa Community in Ogun State.
He told Saturday Sun: “I came here about three weeks ago. I came to visit my brother, John Peter, my friend from hometown.”
So what led to his ordeal? He said: “I was working at a bar in Ajah, where I stole N15,000. I was sacked and I don’t have any other place to go. I had to come down to my brother.”
“I have been stealing since two to three months ago in Lagos, but while I was in Cross Rivers, I stole from my own family. Whenever I went to my daddy’s farm, I normally stole some yams and sold them in the market. Then I would put the money in my pocket. Sometimes, I stole my dummy’s okra to sell. Sometimes I stole their fowls. I stole in Ajah too, I was the one that stole the money at the bar but they sacked me. After they sacked me I left. I stole from my friend that I lived with in Mowe too. I stole his television,
“I steal because I don’t have anybody to help me. Sometimes if I need to do something, if I give people money that they should help me, they will collect it and they will not help me. It is because I want to finish my secondary school that I am stealing.
“Why I burgled the shop was because I want to use the money to get some shirts and to travel back to my home town.”
He also told this reporter how he burgled the provision shop.
“I have been looking at that shop. So around 3:30am, I went there and broke into the shop. I broke the iron thing they attached to the door. After I broke it, I entered inside and packed those items; solar, singlets, soap, charger, memory card, one bottle of wine, slippers and Milo. Then I hid them in the bush.”
What gave him away was the cowry bead in his hair. “I did not know that the cowry I normally put on my head fell inside the shop.
“In the morning, when the mystery surrounding the burglary was the topic of discussion, some people suggested that they should come and call me because someone said he saw that cowry on my head. When I got to the shop, there was no need for me to deny again because I knew that it is my own. If I did not tell them, they would have set me ablaze.”
He added that on getting to the shop, he was told that the cowry he attached to his hair was the evidence that identified him as a thief. He said he was tortured before he took his captors to where he hid the items.
Upon the recovery of the items, he said he and his ‘brother’ were handed over to So Safe Corps, a community security outfit at Ilogbo, after which he was handed over to the police at Iju Police Station.
The suspect claimed that the complainant said at the police station that she was not interested in pressing charges but warned that he and his friend should not be seen anywhere near the community.
His alleged accomplice, John Peter, 31, said he was working at a construction site. He said he had been living in the community where the shop was burgled for long before his friend came to live with him.
“I’ve been living there for more than 15 years. I do site work. I’m here because this my brother John Agor came to my place and said he wanted to stay with me. We are from the same town. He said he lost his job, so I accommodated him in my house. When we wake up, we go to ‘hustle,’ (look for what to do.) When we come back we cook and eat together.
“On the day of the burglary, we went to the site. I said I was going out and that he should meet me in the house. I wanted to clear the environment around the house because it was too bushy. He never came back until around 4am the following morning. I asked him why he did not come home to sleep, and he said he went to sleep at Monday’s place.
“I said no problem and that he should meet me at the site. Later, we heard of the burglary around our area.
“When I went there, they asked me to call Agor. They asked me about his movements and I told them. They left us and we went home.”
He said when Agor confirmed to him that he owned the cowry found in the burgled shop, he didn’t know what to say again.
John lamented: “Since he came here, I have fed him and I even give him pocket money at times from earnings from my site job. I am not aware that he steals. I have been here for more than 20 years now. I don’t travel like he does. I was married and blessed with a boy, but my wife is no longer with me.”
Agor continued: “When they requested a surety to bail us from police custody, I told them about Monday. But he said the only person he knows who can bail us is another man simply identified as Balau.”
He said it was while they were looking for the surety to bail them that something else happened.
“In the evening, I was in the cell when they came to call me. When I got outside, I saw Monday with the police.”
Investigation had linked Monday who was supposed to facilitate the bail to another crime.
Monday Ikeagu, is a married man who also lives in Ijiri, Alamo Adodo-Ota Local Government area of Ogun State. He narrated how he was taken into police custody after a locally-made pistol was found in his house.”
He explained further: “Some years ago, there were a lot of Ogoja boys in Musa area, so one of them was working with Omo-Onile. He is Mr. Felix, but I don’t know who his master is. But since he became sick, he left for our hometown. Before leaving, he found things difficult and he begged me for money. I assisted him and gave him N5,000 about three years ago. He promised to come and collect his material which he left with me. He said he would come for them after his ailment. But since then, he hasn’t come back. So where the pistol is, I just dropped it there. I did not make use of it because I don’t know how to make use of it. It has been there, and I have been doing my site work continuously.”
He said he had never used the gun, even though he claimed that the person who gave him said the gun was loaded with one bullet. He said he lied that the gun belonged to John Agor because his own wife found the gun where it had been for a long time – under a bundle of firewood.
“I was about to go and get them – John Agor and John Peter – released by getting an undertaking for them. But on getting home, even though the gun had been there for a long time, my wife went there to get some firewood. She scattered the place where the gun was. I was shocked and as I was going to the police station, I was worried. I didn’t know what to do. Then I took it to the vigilantes and as they came and took it to their office, they encouraged me that anything that I could do to survive this ordeal, I should do it. But the gun is not mine and I don’t want to lie anymore. I have been lying about it at the police station while trying to defend myself.”
He said the vigilantes told him to lie that the gun belonged to John Agor. “But my conscience is judging me. I’ve been lying since we came to the cell. The gun does not belong to Agor. Let me face my ordeal by myself,” he said.
