But for sheer luck, two friends would have spent some time in prisons just because they wanted to give another friend of theirs a means of livelihood.
Segun Alawaye and Taofeek are two popular drivers at Onipanu area of Lagos State who make their daily living driving commercial commuter buses in the metropolis. Sometime in December 2013, the two friends chose to take another friend, identified as Rasheed, also a driver too, out of the unemployment market.
The two friends reportedly approached a businessman in their neighbourhood to purchase a commercial Varagon bus for them with the promise that they would be remitting specified amount of money to the man’s account weekly. With a lot of pressures from the two drivers, the businessman, name withheld, did as they requested.
The man reportedly purchased the bus and put it in charge of the two drivers, since they were well known to him, while expecting that some amount would be remitted to his bank account as promised. Once the bus was delivered to Segun and Taofeek, they in turn handed over the vehicle to Rasheed asking him to be using the vehicle and also remit the promised amount to the owner’s bank account as it was arranged with the businessman. Rasheed, 30, is husband to two women and father of four children.
It was reported that a week after the vehicle was handed over to him, Taofeek, a native of Ijebu Igbo, in Ogun State, absconded with it and was never seen again. In the early days of the disappearance of Rasheed and the vehicle, it was reported that once his mobile telephone numbers were contacted, he would tell his two friends that he was on a chartered arrangement to a neighbouring state and that he would soon be back in Lagos. But some days after he ran away with the vehicle, all calls to his mobile telephone lines did not connect after he had supposedly removed his known SIM cards.
About two weeks after Rasheed had disappeared from the motor park he reportedly registered the vehicle, Segun and Taofeek took a day off from their work to go in search of their friend. On getting to his house, the two friends were shellshocked to learnt that Rasheed had moved his family out of the house.
So, neither him nor any of his two wives could be traced. Sensing that they had more trouble in their hands than anticipated, Segun and Taofeek also reportedly went to Rasheed’s ancestral home at Ijebu Igbo. If the news they got in their friend’s Lagos home was shocking, the the one at Ijebu Igbo in his family home was worrisome: Segun and Taofeek were told by Rasheed’s extended family members that he had last been seen there about five years ago.
The two friends reportedly came back to Lagos and reported the matter at Pedro Police Station. While Segun and Taofeek were busy searching for their runaway friend and the vehicle in his care, the businessman owner of the stolen vehicle sensed that the two friends, for whom he bought the vehicle, were playing pranks on him when he neither saw them, the vehicle nor remittance of proceeds as arranged. The man also reported the matter at same police station.
It was reported that the law enforcement agents, not too convinced about the veracity of the claims of the two friends, detained them for about six days while they urged that they should produce the missing vehicle.
But when it became obvious that the vehicle would not be seen while the two men remained in detention, in February 2014, the vehicle owner agreed to have the two men released but with an agreement signed that they would pay the cost of the stolen vehicle. It was reported that they already started paying the cost of the vehicle by installment.
But luck shone on the two friends when on Sunday, March 23, 2014, while the two men were at work, they reportedly got calls to the effect that the stolen vehicle was found plying Ikorodu to Adammo area, along the old Ijebu-Ode Road.
That apparently was the information the two friends had been waiting for. They wasted no time, mobilized some men and sped off to where the bus was reportedly located. In the end, they reportedly found Rasheed behind the wheels at the said motor park and he was promptly arrested and brought to Pedro Police Station.
In his confessional statement right from where he was apprehended and brought to Lagos, Rasheed claimed he deliberately absconded with the vehicle and hoping to use it at his own pace to be able to pay for it and have it becomes his.
He was quoted as saying, “It was true that Alawaye and Kareca (Segun and Taofeek) helped me get the vehicle, but I knew I would not achieve my aim if I continue to make weekly payment. So, I chose to take it to Ijebu-Ode so that I would use it to work and later pay the cost of the vehicle and it would be mine.
I did not run away with it.” On his part, Segun, who was close to tears when Rasheed was brought to the police station, claimed that he championed the cause of getting Raheed a vehicle when his second wife was reported to have conceived their fifth child and his friend was still without a job.
His words, “I think I have learnt my lesson the hard way. I thought it was not good for me to be working and a friend of mine just sleeping at home and also relying on the stipends we were able to give him each time we see.
That was why I approached the man to busy me another bus which he eventually did, but I never knew that I was only fooling myself. But I m happy that we eventually found him which has cleared our names of connivance with him to steal the vehicle,” he said. Segun also demanded that the vehicle owner should refund the money he and his friend had started paying on the vehicle now that it has been found.
Source: National Mirror
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