By Tola Gbadamosi

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A 17-year-old suspected vandal, Sunday Adegbulu, has confessed that his godfather lured and promised him N25,000, to vandalise an electricity transformer.

The suspect who claimed to be a JSS 3 student, made the confession when he was paraded alongside other 42 suspected criminals by the Ondo State Amotekun Corps Commander, Akogun Adetunji Adeleye at the Corps’ Headquarters in Akure.

His words: “An Okada man took me to inspect a transformer on the order of my godfather, one Mr Abubakar, who promised to pay me N25,000, after carrying out the vandalisation.

“Unfortunately for me, while I was busy carrying out the deal, electricity was restored and it burnt almost half of my body.

“This is the second operation we have gone for. The first one, we stole household wire and we gave them to him (Abubakar). And now, we wanted to steal transformer cables and that was when I got electrocuted.

“We were three that went for the operation. Two of us had earlier went to inspect the transformer on April 28, before I was asked to go and carry out the operation which led me to my present predicament.”

Speaking while parading the suspects, State Commander of the Corps, Akogun Adetunji Adeleye described the teenage suspect as one of the set of criminals that engaged in vandalization of  transformers.

He said they specialize in  vandalisation of electrical installations in uncompleted buildings; pull out the wire, peel, melt and sell to their godfathers.

Akogun Adeleye said  luck ran out of the 17-year-old vandal as electricity was restored while he was busy cutting the cable which resulted to half of his body alomst being burnt.

“Having realised this, we quickly arrested him after of trailing because the moment it happened, he was rushed to three different hospitals and the moment they got wind of the fact that detectives from the Ondo State Security Network Agency were on their trail, they moved him out of Akure.

“We trailed him to the location he was taken to and brought him in a very terrible state. It was later discovered that there was an arrangement to kill him, so that he will not reveal his sponsors.

“In order to keep him healthy and make him useful for our investigations, we brought him to the health facility of the corps, spent a lot of money to revive and make him come back to life.

“In his confessional statement, he was able to tell us about nine other members of the gang, including their god father now at large.

“As I speak with you, we are on the trail of the god father and soon, we will apprehend him,”he explained.