A
man claiming to be the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly has
been arrested by officials of the Ogun State Police Command over
alleged armed robbery.
The suspect, identified as Idris Apena,
was on Thursday paraded at the Eleweran Police Headquarters, Abeokuta,
where the Commissioner of Police, Musa Daura, informed journalists
about the alleged misdeeds of the suspect.
The police boss said Mr. Apena
disguised himself as Speaker of the Lagos House of Assembly and sent
one of his ‘aides’ to go and find out if the Divisional Police Officer
(DPO) of Sagamu was in his office. He said the police later discovered
this to be a ploy to establish the location of the police officer to
pave way for his (the suspect’s) gang to operate.
Mr. Daura explained further that the
action of the self-acclaimed speaker arose suspicion, and the
divisional officer ordered his men to visit the suspect where he was
and subsequently bring him to the station.
The audacity of pomp
However, the ‘Speaker’s’ audacity took
a dramatic turn when, on further interrogation at the police station, a
fake assembly identity card was found on him. He later confessed to be
a fake speaker, but explained that he had contested for the Lagos State
House of Assembly seat in Lagos State on the platform of the Democratic
Peoples Alliance at Epe but lost.
“He sent an ‘okada’ rider to find out
if the DPO Sagamu was on seat and his action aroused suspicion and the
DPO mobilised team for his arrest,” Mr. Daura said. “Eventually, the
suspect confessed to be a member of an armed robbery syndicate and that
they wanted to know if the DPO was on seat so that they could operate.”
The ‘Honourable’
But the suspect, while speaking with
journalists, admitted to disguising himself as speaker of the assembly
because “after I lost the election to Action Congress (AC), people
still addressed me as ‘Honourable’ because of my popularity.”
He said what led to his arrest was that
he had gone to seek money being owed him by a debtor, and, in an
attempt to use his political influence and get the man arrested, he
sought to know whether the DPO was around to help him effect the arrest
of his debtor.
The suspect, who claimed to be a
graduate of Mechanical Engineering from Lagos State University (LASU),
however, said luck ran against him when the police discovered that he
was not an authentic Speaker.
“The DPO saw it as an insult for me to have asked to know if he was on seat, and effected my arrest,” he said.
Leave a Reply