I saved N20,000 to buy uniform, handcuffs and teargas – Fake policeman nabbed in Ogun

The Ogun State Police Command has apprehended a 32-year–old man, Taiwo Agboola, who impersonated a police corporal for two years without detection.

 Agboola told our correspondent at the Department of Criminal Investigation, Eleweran, Abeokuta, where he is currently being held, that he had applied during a police recruitment exercise but was never employed, which was the reason he became desperate to the point of spending his N20,000 savings on buying police uniforms, handcuffs, and teargas.

It was the first step in his quest to becoming a policeman, Agboola told Saturday PUNCH. The secondary school drop-out who hails from Ife, Osun State, said as far as he was concerned, he was just like every other unemployed youth in the country.

He said when he started to put his plan into play in 2012, nothing would stand in his way of achieving his dream-job.

“I was desperate but I was very smart. I leave my house everyday, seeking out the gathering of policemen, just to gather information about the way they operate,” he told our correspondent.

Like an undercover criminal, Agboola gathered information from bars frequented by policemen, he befriended some and bought drinks for others just to get as much information out of them as he could.

He said, “When I was sure that I had enough information about where and how to get police uniform and how to operate undetected, I decided to use the N20,000 savings I had gathered from the menial jobs I had done at the time to buy police uniforms.

“I went to Eleyele in Ibadan and bought police uniform for N5,000 from a tailor who normally sew uniforms for policemen. I also tracked down a policeman in the same Ibadan who sold me handcuffs for N4,000 and teargas for N3,000. I did not have much at the time, but I knew that the police work would be profitable as soon as I started.”

According to Agboola, he started life as a photographer, a job which was not too profitable.