Monkey Business ......Man, baboon, arrested for robbery

Mohammed Rafiu, 26, is now in the custody of the Lagos State Police Command after he was arrested, along with his 10-year-old baboon for alleged robbery, Sun reports.

Both the suspect and the baboon were arrested at Ogba, Lagos, shortly after allegedly robbed one of their victims of N240,000.

At the police station, Rafiu confessed that he relocated to Lagos when he learnt that his business would do better in the city.

He said:

“I normally sell herbal mix­tures in Kano and to attract customers, I al­low my monkey to dance to the amazement of passers-by. This will attract their atten­tion and give me the opportunity to sell my drugs. In 2005, my brother returned from Lagos and told me that I am wasting my tal­ent in Kano.

He advised me to travel down to Lagos with the baboon. Since I knew that I was going for a better opportunity, I bought a new monkey making it two. Just like he predicted, business was booming till 2010 when it started dwindling. They were so many herbal doctors everywhere. We could hardly make N2, 000 in a day. Life was be­coming difficult that I could not send money home.

I was even contemplating to travel back to Kano when an incident changed my deci­sion. We were heading back after a stressful day, when my monkey jumped on a woman and she left her bag and fled. I called her in an attempt to give her the bag but she kept running. Since no one saw what happened, I kept the bag and later discovered that there was N30,000 inside it. I was very happy and shared the news with my colleague who was into the same monkey business.”

They decided to ex­plore the newly discovered trick, Rafiu said.

“We nor­mally operate at night when no one will notice that we are there. We made good money and gradually we introduced the use of snake. No normal person will take a pin if he sees a snake is about to bite him. We had to stop using the snake when we nearly lost control of it during an operation. The snake did not stop when we ordered it, I had to kill the python to save the man.”

On the day of his arrest, he said that they came with their car towards the bank.

“We waited till we saw a man stepping out from the bank with a bag. We followed him be­hind till he left the bank area. I then stepped out with the two monkeys with us, while Sani, my partner moved closer to him. I or­dered the monkey to scare him and he threw away the money and ran for safety. As fast as we could, I picked the money and threw it to Sani who rushed into the car. Unfortu­nately passers-by saw what happened and started stoning me. Sani ran away with one of the baboons while I was mobbed by some angry people. It was God that saved me when two policemen came and rescued me. I would have died there. I thank Allah”

The monkey, in chains, still appeared hostile at the sight of policemen and journal­ists. Rafiu explained that it has been trained to disarm anybody, a feat it had done sev­erally. He also warned that women are not allowed to come closer as it has been trained to have sex with women.

Lagos police com­mand spokesman, DSP Kenneth Nwosu said that the police is still on the trail of the oth­ers while the suspect and the baboon will be charged to court at the end of investigation.

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