Rivers police docks armed man contracted by pastor to pose as soldier

The Rivers State Police Command has paraded a man, identified as Adamu Siraju, for posing as a military officer and carrying a rifle.

Siraju was paraded alongside 14 other suspects at the Police headquarters in Port Harcourt at the weekend.

The State Commissioner of Police, Friday Eboka, disclosed that the command received information on February 1, 2022 that Siraju was in Army uniform and brandishing a rifle at a hotel in Rumuigbo, Obio-Akpor area of Rivers State.

The CP said his men had swung into action, nabbed the fake soldier, and recovered the rifle in his possession.

He said: “On the 1st of this month, we had information that a man in military uniform was brandishing a G3 rifle in a hotel at Rumuigbo, Port Harcourt. We moved swiftly to the place and the man was arrested and the G3 rifle was recovered from him.

“The man confessed that he is not a military man and that one of his friends gave him the military uniform. The man has nothing to do with the military and the case would soon be concluded and charged to court.”

Siraju however told The Guardian that he was contracted by a pastor who had dealings with internet fraudsters (yahoo boys) to pose as military personnel in order to recover ‘owed money’.

He said: “One pastor known as Pastor Ifeanyi Ezekiel, called me and told me that he did a business with some Yahoo boys who were supposed to give him 40 per cent from the deal. So, he said I should disguise myself as a soldier to escort him and collect the money and he would give me the sum of N500,000.00.

“So, I left Boricamp barracks and met him at Nkpolu junction and he said the deal was in the night at G-throne hotel, I borrowed the rifle from a civil defenceman, I met him and explained what I wanted to use it for and he gave it to me.

“I am not a military man but a son of a late Major General by name Abdulahi Siraju. I am a barrack boy and I saw the uniform in a room I occupied after the former occupant probably left to serve in Maiduguri.  I saw the uniform as a leftover inside a bag, and the name tag is my name, which was given to me as a helper in the barrack.”