Fresh details from the reports of the Offa robbery state that policemen allegedly took N400k bribe from the robbers prior to the attack which reportedly led to the robbers visiting the police station the following day and killed about nine policemen in retaliation for collecting N400,000 from them.
The 12 suspects were arrested over the recent bank robbery in Offa through the tracking of mobile phones the robbers collected from victims during the attack. The robbery suspects reportedly gave the stolen phones to their girlfriends. Upon the interrogation of the girlfriends with whom the phones were found, the suspects in Ibadan, Lagos and Abeokuta were arrested.
It may be recalled that the Offa robbery had led to the death of 17 persons including police officers, while many were left injured and robbed.
Investigations revealed that the suspects had been in and out of jail several times and that they regrouped for that operation. Furthermore, it was gathered that the owner of the hotel where the bandits lodged a day before they struck, was said to have informed the Divisional Police Officer, DPO, in the town over the alleged discoveries of some incriminating materials on the bandits while they were checking into his hotel.
The DPO and Divisional Crime Officer, DCO, immediately sent some officers to the hotel. A source said instead of arresting the suspects, the police officers negotiated with the bandits, and “the bandits offered the officers N400,000.”
When the policemen returned to the station, they told the DPO and DCO that the bandits were Yahoo boys and not robbers as claimed by the hotel owner.
When arraigned before a magistrate court in Ilorin last week for alleged conspiracy in the attack, the proprietor of the hotel reportedly challenged the DPO and DCO to deny if he had not informed them about the bandits when they lodged in his hotel before the attacks on the banks
