Robber's Lover Nabbed

A TOGOLESE model, Felivian Ayariga, was on Saturday arrested in connection with her boyfriend, Rabiu, Accra’s most wanted armed robber, who was killed in a shoot-out at Ogbojo, near Madina in Accra on Friday.

The 26-year-old model, also known as Dion, is seen on huge billboards around the country advertising for a popular fabric maker.

She was detained at the female cells of the Ministries Police Station after her arrest by the Accra Regional Police Command to help them in their investigations on her deceased lover’s escapades.

Two ladies aged about 18 years, who were also allegedly dating the notorious armed robber, were also arrested and granted bail after interrogations.

While one of the girls was in JHS 1, the other was a second-year student of one of the Senior High Schools in Accra.

Felivian’s arrest followed the death of her boyfriend in a bid to recover most of the stolen items from their robbery expeditions, of which the police believed she was a beneficiary.

This was not the first time Felivian had been arrested.

Three weeks ago, she was picked up and detained at Anyaa but failed to cooperate with the police under the guise of being a former girlfriend of Rabiu.

However, intelligence reports gathered showed that she was still with Rabiu but allegedly lied to free herself from the claws of the law.

Felivian allegedly hopped from one hotel to the other with her most wanted boyfriend, damning the consequences although Rabiu was on the wanted list of the police. He was linked to the recent robbery at UBA bank in Tema where a policeman was killed.

At the Accra Regional Police Headquarters, she almost broke down in tears when she saw the bullet riddled body of her man as her voice cracked when she told police “yes! that is Rabiu.”

Rabiu was said to have come out of the Nsawam Medium Prisons somewhere in 2010 after serving a jail term and soon went back into robbery.

The deceased robbers had been identified with several robberies within Accra and the Tema regions.

Some of the robberies were the Louis Gas robbery in which the managing director of the company, Louis Kofi Badu, was killed in 2010, Ecobank robbery in August 2011 at the Accra Mall branch near Tetteh Quarshie Roundabout, Antis (dealers in building materials) robbery in January and the Tema bank robbery in which a cop was killed, also in January 2012.

Rabiu, a Togolese, and his Nigerian accomplice Simon Peter, died in a fierce shoot-out at Ogbojo where they tried, together with a third robber, Raman (who escaped) to attack a Nigerian national over their missing weapon.

The two, after the Tema UBA robbery in which Sam Peter allegedly shot and killed a policeman attached to the Community 4 police station, hid their weapon in the flower bed of a house at Ogbojo.

When they returned later in the hope of recovering their weapon, it was nowhere to be found.

The two, having heard that there was a Nigerian living adjacent to where they had hidden the weapon, suspected he might have taken their weapon and so hatched an attack.

Unfortunately for them, the police had long dug out the weapon.

The police also heard about the intended attack and therefore laid ambush in the area.

On Friday February 24, 2012, Rabiu and two accomplices, Simon Peter and Raman arrived on two motorbikes and attacked the Nigerian, but the police closed in on them.

In a fierce encounter, the police killed Rabiu and Sam while Raman escaped with gunshot wounds.

The Regional Police Commander, COP Rose Bio Atinga and her Deputy, ACP Christian Tetteh Yohuno, sounded a stern warning to armed robbers at a press conference on Saturday.

“Crime does not pay. It is either you die or you go to prison,” she told the miscreants.

The regional command also expressed gratitude to its informants, thanking them for keeping faith with the people of Ghana and the Police Service.

“We wish to thank our informants for their loyalty to the people of Ghana and the Police Service,” COP Rose Atinga said.

ACP Yohuno lauded the efforts of the Inspector-General of Police Paul Tawiah Quaye for instituting the IGP’s reward system which adequately rewarded informants in a bid to encourage them to keep volunteering credible information to the police.

Killer Robber Is Millionaire

Rabiu aka Raba has been described as a millionaire by the Accra Regional Police Command during a tour of one of his properties.

He was said to have bought the parcel of land on which he was developing a storey building at the cost of GH¢21,000 and had sunk several thousands of cedis into the building which is currently under construction.

A background check on Rabiu indicated that as a child, he spent most of his time in correctional homes because he was delinquent.

Rabiu, who was about 41 years old, was born in the sprawling community of Mamobi, near Nima in Accra.

The Deputy Accra Regional Police Commander, ACP Yohuno, told DAILY GUIDE that the deceased robber had gained notoriety for attacking banks.

Three times he had been arrested and three times he had escaped, but he was not so lucky the fourth time and died after being dazed with several bullets at Ogbojo last Friday.

At the tour of one of his properties which is situated at Agbogbloshie Madina, behind Action School, residents of the location were shocked when the police and the press stormed the area asking questions about the owner of the storey building.

The building is just a walking distance from the residence of the MD of Louis Gas Limited, where Rabiu attacked and killed him.

A resident who claimed he knew the deceased robber said he was very unassuming.

“He came around 7.00 or 8.00pm on motorbike to inspect the property and leaves. Usually he greeted by waving at us and then did the inspection and left immediately,” a resident told the police.

Another said, “I am really surprised! We would have caused his arrest long time ago eh!”

Interestingly, Rabiu’s property is sandwiched between two strong charismatic churches but he always went unnoticed.

ACP Yohuno said Rabiu had spent about eighty percent of his life time in jail and was a menace to society.