Burglar Arrested While Entertaining Himself

A 28-year-old burglary suspect in Lagos, Olamilekan Olaoluwa, met his waterloo recently when he decided to entertain himself after breaking into a house.

Ebute-Meta area Photo: Samson Folarin

The Punch reports that Olaoluwa broke into a two-bedroomed apartment located on Brickfield Road on Sunday, November 22 at about 2pm. The Kwara state born burglary suspect met the absence of the occupant. He took his time to removed a Plasma TV from the wall where it was hung, packed clothes, wristwatches and a handset he saw in the house.

ADVERTISING

For Selling 250 Coca-Cola Empty Crates, Two Men Land In Trouble He decided to refresh himself by picking a can of malt from the fridge in the kitchen. It was while he was at it that one of the occupants of the house walked in, met the secondary school dropout with the things he stole. She was said to have raised the alarm, drawing the attention of residents who came to the woman’s rescue. Olaoluwa decided to hide, making the crowd of people search for him frantically in the apartment after which they found him, beat him up and then handing him over to the police officers attached to the Iponri division.
Olaoluwa, who claimed to have spent six years to train as a plumber, said he did not have a job or a place of abode. He said he broke into his victim’s house because the gate was left open. He said: “I am a secondary school dropout. I do not have a permanent place of abode, but I sometimes sleep in the Oko Baba Sawmill in Ebute-Meta. I don’t always steal from people. On Sunday, November 22, around 2pm, I was passing by when I saw that the gate was slightly opened and that made it easy for me to enter.
“I broke the padlock and entered the sitting room where I removed the Plasma TV. I then entered the bedroom and took the woman’s husband underwears and wristwatches. I also took the handset and the TV’s remote control. I opened the fridge and took a can of malt and drank it. I was going downstairs when I saw the woman. She asked who I was and what I was doing in her house. I asked her not to shout, but she shouted and people came inside the house.”
The police said the suspect was arrested with the Plasma TV valued at N150,000; two wristwatches valued at N50,000; underwear estimated at N10,000; a mobile phone valued at N5,000, adding that everything summed up to N215,000. The Investigating Police Officer, Chukwuocha Augustine, arraigned the suspect on Tuesday before an Ebute-Meta Magistrates’ Court on four counts of burglary, malicious damage, breach of the public peace and stealing.