I Got Rifle For Robbery From Boko Haram – Soldier

One of the soldiers fighting Boko Haram insurgents in the North has been arrested for attempting to rob a filling station in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

The suspect, Abel Solomon (30), said the operation would have fetched him N20 million if it had scaled through.

The robbery operation plan was ruined by the Inspector General of Police Special Intelligence Response Team (IRT), led by a Chief Superintendent of Police, Abba Kyari. Solomon and his accomplices were arrested while still fine-tuning their plan.

He confessed that the pump action rifle recovered from him, which he wanted to use for the robbery operation, belonged to a Boko Haram insurgent.

According to him, after one of their encounters with Boko Haram members, he had taken and buried the rifle. When he and his accomplices started brainstorming on how to rob the filling station, he went and unearthed the rifle. He said he had served at the 58 and 509 Signal Regiments before moving to 143 Battalion in 2014.

The suspect, who said he joined the Nigerian Army in 2005, added that: “After our training at Katangura, Niger State, we were deployed to Adamawa State to fight Boko Haram insurgents. After engaging the insurgents, we normally retrieve all weapons abandoned by the insurgents.

That was how I found a pump action rifle abandoned by the insurgents. I buried it in the bush.”