A 25-year-old man in Adamawa State, Suleiman Auwal, has been caught with a stolen tricycle in the state capital, Yola.
Tricycle, popularly called Keke NAPEP, is the only means of intracity transportation used in Yola and is, therefore, hugely popular among residents.
Newsmen correspondent gathered Tuesday that Auwal allegedly stole one of the tricycles last Friday at the main shopping complex in Jimeta, and took it to Jambutu, a community not more than four or five kilometres away and within the same Jimeta district of Yola, and was using it to carry passengers.
He was spotted with it, and the Adamawa State Police Command took charge of it.
Operatives of the command picked him up and Auwal, who resides in a part of Jambutu called Aso Rock, confessed to the crime.
According to the Police Public Relations Officer, SP Suleiman Nguroje, he confessed that he made away with the tricycle, now known to belong to one Abubakar Usman, at the Juma’at Mosque in the Jimeta Ultra Modern Market.
The police established that Auwal, who joined other people to offer the Jumat prayers at the Mosque, hurriedly completed his prayer and rushed to where tricycles were packed and stole one.
He affirmed to the police that he was using it for commercial purposes around Jambutu when he was arrested.
He said that in the few days that he had possession of the vehicle, he was paying N100 daily to a local security man to guard the tricycle from being stolen.
Nguroje has assured that Auwal is in police custody, and that the state Commissioner of Police, Afolabi Babatola, had ordered that the suspect be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted.