From Petrus Obi, Enugu

Their colleagues would have preferred to sneak out in the dead of the night to carry out their nefarious “trade,” but no so for these “holy thieves.”

They had hatched their plan on a Sunday as a church service was going on in the God’s Covenant Ministry Church on No. 20 Obiagu Road, Enugu State.

The house is a two-storey building, which has on the ground floor, a printing company and living apartment; first floor, the God’s Covenant Ministry Church and second floor, The Sun South East Regional headquarters.

Thus The Sun office is located on the popular and ever-busy Edinburgh/Obiagu axis where almost all the media houses have their offices.

While the office enjoys the busy and noisy surrounding which is good for business, it also contends with the fallouts of the over-populated Obiagu slum, which include criminal activities.

In the past, several vendors, newspaper distributors and circulation representatives of the newspaper, had been robbed in front of the office in the early hours while sharing the daily newspapers in the morning.

Just recently, the thieves elevated their affront as they broke into the regional headquarters, ransacking all the offices while the members of the God’s Covenant Ministry Church were having their Sunday service on the next floor down.

An eye-witness said the thieves who were two, had dressed as if they were members of the church, and had walked through its floor before breaking the ceiling to gain entry into The Sun offices.

The source said the robbers must have capitalised on the noise coming out from the church to carry out their nefarious assignment without those living in the adjacent building and those living downstairs being attracted by the noise of the thieves.

As the robbers were broke into the offices one after another, they did not know that a staff of the newspaper company, Uchechukwu Ngwu, was in one of the offices.

So as soon as they got to where he was and sighted him, they took to their heels.

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Narrating his encounter with the thieves, Ngwu said: “The noise from the church was getting too much for me so I decided to go further inside the office to where the circulation staffers use. Suddenly, I started hearing noise up in the roof; pigeons started making noise in reaction to whatever it was that disturbed their peace.

“I was worried and I thought within myself, could this be as a result of the noise from the worshippers below? I sat up wondering what was happening; and suddenly there was a cracking sound on one of the ceilings; looking up I saw someone inside the ceiling.

“As he made a retreat I heard a voice said in a low tune, ‘Mopol somebody dey inside ooo’. I raised my voice and shouted thieves, thieves, thieves, to attract attention, but my voice was drowned by the blaring speakers from the church on the floor below.

“By the time I came out I discovered that most of the doors had been forced open and almost all the offices ransacked.”

While some of the worshippers said they saw a young man looking dirty and dusty, without any shirt on came downstairs, a search by a team from operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) that arrived at the scene in quick response came up with little or nothing.

Nobody was found inside the ceiling by the police, but only a shirt and pair of sandals suspected to belong to one of the thieves.

In her account, the front desk receptionist, Amara Oforjebe said: “I got a call from one of the worshippers who told me that they saw someone come down from our office looking so dirty. They suspected that something could be going wrong up on our own floor. I rushed to the office and discovered that the thieves visited the office and ransacked everywhere.

“I started to make the necessary calls, first to the Assistant Editor/Head, South East Bureau, Mr. Chidi Nnadi and the Correspondent, Mr. Petrus Obi.”

At the end, no money or any valuable was found missing in the office although a great damage was done to the doors and furniture in the offices.

Mr. Nnadi said it was sad that thieves would break into a newspaper house when it was not a monetary institution or business concern where monies are kept.

Nnadi who disclosed that the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in charge of Ogui Police Station, Mr. Amobi had visited him in office with his men, urged the police to provide adequate security for The Sun Enugu office, saying that robbers late last year attacked his salesmen thrice in front of the office, and dispossessed them of their cell phones.

According to him, DPO Amobi had promised him when he visited that his men would stop at nothing in ensuring that the hoodlums who broke into the office were apprehended.