Five suspected Highway Robbers Arrested in Adamawa

By Bimbo Ogunnaike

The Adamawa State Police Command has arrested five armed robbers who were allegedly terrorizing Numan-Savannah-Lafia Road, a section of the Yola-Gombe Highway.

The command  said 22 handsets and a cash sum totalling N52, 280 which the suspects snatched from travellers, were recovered from the bandits.

The State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Sulaiman Nguroje, who disclosed the arrest of the hoodlums on Tueaday, said the suspects, comprising four men and one woman, were nabbed following a tip-off.

“Through intelligence report received, the police were able to lay hands on these people who have been constantly robbing travellers, especially at night along Numan-Savannah-Lafia road,” the PPRO said.

The Numan-Savannah-Lafia Road is a short stretch of the Yola-Gombe Highway which has long been hated by travellers because of its dilapidated nature, especially the swampy portion on which the expansive Savannah Sugar Company is located and is accordingly called Savannah.

Nguroje,who said the five suspects were apprehended in the early hours of October 26, gave their names as Shuaibu Suleiman, Adamu Abdul, Buba Umar, Ali Ibrahim, and Adama Umaru, said the 22 phones and N52,280 cash sum were recovered from the suspects in the course of investigation.

“They confessed to have robbed these handsets and money from travellers in the course of their operations on the road, ” he said and asked travellers who lost their phones to armed robbers on the identified road to visit the police headquarters in Yola to identify and claim them,” he added.

The state police spokesperson, said the police also recovered six cutlasses, three knives and some black wears and masks from the suspects, and appealed for yet more information from the public to help the police with necessary leads.

He said the five arrested were just some of the robbers on the highway and the rest must be nabbed to free the highway of them, adding that state ”Commissioner of Police, Audu Madaki, has deployed additional men and officers to beef up the anti-robbery squad to apprehend more of the robbers on the run and recover their weapons.”