Two Held For Burgling Church, Stealing Instruments

The Lagos State Police Command has arrested two men for allegedly burgling a church located at Sabo Oniran, Ajagbadi, Lagos State and carting away musical instruments, valued at millions of naira. The suspects, Mr. Tosin Adeyemi 22, and Mr. Chinedu Oledibe 39, were alleged to have burgled the church on August 16, 2016. . . The suspects however denied being culpable. The Lagos State Commissioner of Police (CP), Mr. Fatai Owoseni, said the police were alerted after a church, located at Sabo Oniran, Ajagbandi, was burgled. Items stolen from the church include amplifier, power mixer, keyboard, wireless microphone and others. . . The police boss further said that immediately police received the complaint, they launched an investigation and traced the stolen items to Alaba International Market, Lagos. The suspects were later arrested. One of the suspects, Adeyemi, said that he was innocent of the charges leveled against him. Adeyemi said that his only crime was in assisting some of his friends, to get a buyer for the musical instruments. . . He said he didn’t know the items were stolen ones. Adeyemi said: “I met my friend, Samuel, with some other boy, on my way to purchase something at Alaba Market. I know Samuel.
We used to play football together. He asked me if I could assist in selling the items. . . I took him to Chinedu because my church had just bought some instruments from him recently.
 I figured Chinedu might be willing to buy the items from Samuel.” Adeyemi said he decided to assist Samuel, because he told him that the instruments belonged to his church. . . He said: “Samuel said that his church wanted to sell them, because they wanted to buy new ones.” Buttressing Adeyemi’s story, Chinedu said that he purchased the instruments without receipt, because Samuel told him that the church misplaced the receipt. . . Chinedu said: “I was in my shop when Tosin came with one Samuel. I recognised Tosin because I have seen him often in the market. When I asked him for receipt, Samuel said that his church misplaced the receipt.I negotiated price with him and bought the items for N53, 000.