Julius Adegun had on
Saturday, September 21,
2013, boarded a
commercial bus from
Abule-Egba, on the
Lagos-Abeokuta
Expresssway, around
10.30pm. He was heading
to the Iyana-Ipaja area
but had no idea he had
boarded the bus with a
three-man gang of
robbers. The events that
unfolded later were to
confound him because it
was one he had never
heard of.
“One of the robbers,
who had posed as
the conductor all
along turned towards
us and asked, ‘ Hope
you all have your
ATM cards? ’ He
spoke in pidgin.
Nobody seemed to
be listening to him
because we did not
realise what was
happening at first.
“I had heard of
robbers waylaying
people after they had
used the ATM
before. I had even
heard of people
being ambushed
immediately they
were about to use
the ATM and forced
to withdraw certain
amount of money by
robbers. But I never
imagined I [and
others] would be a
victim of this kind of
robbery.”
He told Punch there were
already nine passengers
in the 14-seater bus apart
from the driver as at the
time he boarded.
The bus had moved about
10 minutes when it got to
a bank on the expressway
towards Iyana Ipaja and
the robbers promptly
swung into action, he
said.
‘Then he said to the
driver, ‘Alaye, enter that
bank.’ That was when I
started to connect the
dots in my head. We
started protesting, asking
why they would be
stopping in front of a
bank at that time of the
night.
“Clearly, the driver was a
part of the gang. One of
the robbers who had sat
quietly at the back of the
bus with one other
passenger shouted at us.
He said, ‘Shut up! Just
cooperate peacefully and
you will be on your way.
He pointed a locally made
pistol at us.”
Adegun said after the
robbers had told them to
bring out their ATM cards
or risk being shot, some
of them promptly did. But
two passengers – a
young man and a woman
– who said they had no
ATM card on them were
slapped many times as
they were being searched.
Eventually, five of them
had ATM cards on them
at the time.
“One of the robbers took
us in turn to the ATM and
asked us to put in our
PIN. They withdrew
everything that each of us
had in the account.
“I had N43,000 in my
account. They first
checked the account
balance and withdrew
N40,000. I was initially
praying that the ATM
would not work that day
but unfortunately it did .
“The other victims too
were robbed of almost all
they had in each of their
accounts. A young man
with us actually said he
was supposed to use the
N80,000 in his account to
buy tyres for his boss the
following morning. But
everything was withdrawn.
He was the one they
robbed of the highest
amount.”
He said they could not
raise the alarm because
the robber with the gun
threatened to shoot
anyone that attempted to
make any noise.
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