In a scene that played out like a badly scripted Nollywood movie, a dismissed pregnant female ‘police officer’, Funmilayo Balogun,
has been arrested for stealing a Honda Crosstour car worth N5m from a
car dealer in Abeokuta, Ogun State, and later sold it for N3.5m, having
collected the sum of N2m from the unsuspecting buyer.
The
35-year-old ‘policewoman’ who was paraded by the Ogun State Police
Command at the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, Magbon, Abeokuta,
according to the state Commissioner of Police, Ikemefuna Okoye, was dismissed
as a corporal in 2010 from the Ondo State Police Command over fake
result but that since her dismissal, has been impersonating as an
Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), deceiving Nigerians and
committing various atrocities till the long arms of the law caught up
with her.
The Police Commissioner explained that
Balogun came to Abeokuta about two months ago and stole a car dealer and
sold it. Since then, she has been on the run until her arrest recently
in Lagos while the stolen car was recovered in Port Harcourt, Rivers
State.
Narrating the scenario to newsmen, Okoye said:
“This
woman specialised in stealing vehicles. She is specialised in deceiving
people, going to car dealers to deceive them that she wants to buy a
car. She will bargain with them, after which she will now tell them that
they should follow her to the bank to cash money.
From
there, she will discharge the dealer and take away the vehicle. I don’t
know how she came about the police uniform and that is what she has
been using to defraud people. In this particular case, she came into
Abeokuta, she negotiated with a car dealer and then pretended to be
coming to the state police headquarters, Eleweran. They believed her and
gave her two boys to follow her.
She
came into the headquarters, drove round, deceived them and went out,
came back and dropped one of the boys and asked the other one to follow
her to the bank to collect the money.
While
their master was inside the office waiting for them, he could not see
them and he had to call them; they said that they were still waiting for
the woman. Their boss now sent another boy to the so-called bank. The
boy went there and was at the bank waiting for this woman.
Then,
the dealer called the woman again and asked about her whereabouts. She
said she was in the bank. While they were waiting, the next time he
called, the woman said she was still processing the money.
After
that, she switched off her phones and headed for Ibadan, the Oyo State
capital, from where she escaped with the car. When the dealers reported
the matter, we investigated and the investigation landed us in Port
Harcourt where we recovered that vehicle after arresting the woman in
Lagos.”
The suspect confessed that she actually stole the car but that it was her first time since she was dismissed.
She
said she regretted her action and appealed to the government to pardon
her because of her children. Balogun, who stated that she already had
twins, advised authorities of the police to desist from dismissing
erring officers. She noted that frequent dismissal of officers could
escalate crime rate in the country.