From Molly Kilete, Abuja
Call him a genius, cat with nine lives and the smartest crook in the universe, you won’t be wrong because for over 40 years, he had succeeded in fooling not just his neighbours, but also church members, men of God and even the Nigerian police, where he served as police officer illegally.
He wore police uniforms and promoted himself to next ranks ‘at when due’ in the last 40 years. He had visited various divisional police headquarters, Area Commands, and headquarters and various police stations in the Federal Capital Territory(FCT), and interacted with the heads of those units who paid him compliment, thinking that he was actually one of them before he was finally nabbed for impersonation.
In his over 40 years as a fake police officer, Mr Olakunle Adesola, who is now in police custody was said to have duped innocent Nigerians of their hard-earned monies running into over N500 million before luck ran out of him.
Armed with two police identity cards, Mr Adesola, who wanted to become a police officer, but was rejected at the point of recruitment, said that his love for police job forced him to parade himself illegally as one.
Interestingly, the suspect, 61-year-old Adesola has been pretending to be a police officer since 1980, and promoted himself to the rank of Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) in October 2022. He had then invited his friends to come and grace his decoration ceremony as AIG by the Inspector General of Police (IGP), at the Police Force headquarters in Abuja.
Unfortunately, most his friends, church members and victims he had duped in the past stormed the venue in solidarity and some of them apparently to use the occasion to confront him to pay the monies owed them, but they could did not find his name among those that were decorated on that day.
Angered by his level of deceit, one after the other, they reported the matter to the various formations/units of the Police Command, writing several petitions to the IGP, Usman Alkali, accusing one of his AIG, of using his office to dupe them of their hard-earned monies.
On receiving their petitions, the IGP set up an investigative team to look into the allegations.
The investigation team swiftly went into action, contacted the suspect with the phone number given to the police, but he kept dribbling the investigators who then laid an ambush for him and arrested him at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church, in Garki, Abuja and took him to the FCT Police Command headquarters for interrogation and further investigation.
He was found to be in possession of several forged documents, unissued police gear, tear gases, and forged academic documents from various higher institutions at the time of his arrest.
During investigation, the police discovered that his modus operandi was to impersonate senior police officer between the ranks of Commissioner and Assistant Inspector General of Police, top-ranking EFCC officials, and/or a legal practitioner who owns a law firm by the name Dr.Kunle Adeshola & Associate, using these to successfully defraud many unsuspecting Nigerians.
He is said to be working alongside his wife who sometimes get the victims they dupe.
Police investigation also revealed that the suspect had collected huge amounts of money from many parents on the pretext of getting admission for their wards into the police academy, which never saw the light of the day.
Apart from pretending to get young boys and girls gain admission into the police academy, Adesola also pretended to be a lawyer and had collected huge sums of monies from church members, members of the public, neighbours, including Reverend Fathers on the pretext that he would help them to get land.
Not only that, he also tells anyone that cares to listen that he works at the EFCC, thereby succeeded in duping persons who have cases to answer in the agency of huge sums of monies to get them off the hook.
It was gathered that the suspect used the opportunity of the caliber of worshippers at the Area 3 Catholic Church to carry out his Illegitimate activities and succeeded in sustaining his illegalities over the years.
On two occasions, he was said to have been arrested by the EFCC, for pretending to be a staff of the agency. He was paraded and prosecuted, but he went back to his vomit after he was set free.
Interestingly, the 61-year-old man who has defrauded Nigerians of their hard earned monies, does not have a house of his own. He lives in a rented apartment on Liberty Estate by Spring road AMAC, Abuja.
The suspect, who confessed that he has been in the business of defrauding unsuspecting members of the public, since 1980, said he cannot explain what he did with the money he made from the business during an interview with Sunday Sun.
Adesola, who does not feel remorseful about his criminal act said that he only committed a mistake and not a crime and hopes to come out of it with the help of his lawyer.
The police, however, said that discrete investigation is still ongoing to arrest other members of his criminal enterprise.
The FCT Commissioner of Police, FCT Command, Babaji Sunday, also said that the suspect has no past or present affiliation with the police in status or otherwise and at any level and advised members of the public to be weary of such unscrupulous elements who parade themselves as police officers to defraud members of the public.
The police said that it would charge the suspect to court as soon as investigation is concluded.