Free rides: How man lures, robs ladies

Kazeem Olalekan is a 32-year-old father of two children. He claims he is a trader specialising in the sale of kerosene. But he drives from Abeokuta, Ogun State, where he lives, to Lagos daily to cut deals.


Olalekan and some of his victims

His tool of trade is his brown Toyota Carina E marked CP117 FST. Olalekan drives the car round Lagos allegedly in search of ladies carrying big handbags and waiting by the roadside for free rides.

Immediately he sees a target, he allegedly hoots and beckons on the lady to join him for a jolly ride. As soon as the target settles down inside the car, he engages her in a friendly chat to make her comfortable.

Soon, Olalekan would pretend that the car has suddenly developed a mechanical fault. He parks by the roadside and fumbles with one or two things in the car, pretending as if he wants to fix it.

He later cajoles the lady into joining him to push the car in order to jump-start it. The lady then willingly drops her bag and other valuables inside the car and pushes it from the rear while Olalekan pushes from the driver's side, still controlling the steering.

When satisfied that the lady is engrossed in the exercise, Olalekan jumps inside the car, puts on the ignition and zooms off with the lady's property. The lady is left behind to lick her own wounds.

He has been engaging in this act since November 2009 and is believed to have raked in huge sums of money and other valuables, including mobile telephone handsets.

But nemesis caught up with him on Monday when one of his alleged victims, whom he had robbed the previous day, identified him while he was scouting for another victim. The lady quickly called for help and he was arrested.

When he was paraded before journalists at the Public Relations Office of the Lagos State Police Command in Ikeja on Tuesday, some of the stolen items recovered from him were also on display.

They included 28 Automated Teller Machine cards, four national identity cards, two driver's licences, two voter cards, three school identity cards, one Economic Community of West Africa States' passport and different sizes of ladies' bags.

Olalekan told journalists that he went into the illicit deal in order to avenge his ordeal in the hands of ladies on November 17, 2009 in Lagos.

He recalled that he had earlier gone to hotel in Victoria Island, Lagos on the said day to collect about $160,000 from an unnamed person. He said he decided to relax at the nearby Kuramo Beach before continuing his journey when he fell into the hands of ladies, who posed as call girls.

He said, "Immediately I arrived at Kuramo Beach, two ladies approached me and asked me what I wanted. When I demanded a bottle of Gulder, one of them quickly went away to fetch the drink.

"The other lady agreed to have segxwal intercourse with me for N2,500, which I gladly agreed to pay. Immediately, the ladies erected a make-shift shed over us and the show started. As soon as I started caressing and sucking the lady's Bosom s, that was the last I could remember.

"I woke up the following morning with nothing on me. The ladies stole all the money I had on me and took away my car key to ransack the car. I could not identify them the following day.

"Because of that money they stole from me, I spent about 10 days in police detention and my wife deserted me. It was at that point that the idea came to me and I decided to deal with ladies. Since I don't have a gun to deal with them, that was the best way I thought of."

Three of Olalekan's victims - Adegoroye Khadijat, Jennifer Ogochukwu and Cynthia Kodu - relayed their experiences in the hands of the suspect to journalists.

They all lost valuables to him in similar circumstances. While he offered Khadijat a ride in Ikorodu, he drove Ogochukwu and Kodu from Allen Avenue, Ikeja and Lagos Island respectively.

A day after robbing Ogochukwu, she saw the suspect driving his car towards a car wash located on Agidi Road, Alapere, a suburb of Lagos. She quickly sought help and reported at Alapere Police Station, from where a team of policemen led by the Divisional Police Officer, Mr. Adebiyi Ademola, went to the scene and arrested him.

The command's spokesman, Mr. Frank Mba, told journalists that on completion of investigation, the suspect would be prosecuted for stealing.

Mba, a superintendent of police, warned Lagosians, especially ladies, to be wary of free rides.