Odili’s Home Invasion was a Forgery of the CSP’s Fifth Illegal Raid, according to a Police Source.

Odili’s Home Invasion was a Forgery of the CSP’s Fifth Illegal Raid, according to a Police Source.

FastNews reports that Lawrence Ajodo, a phony police officer arrested along with 13 others for laying siege to Supreme Court Justice Mary Odili’s Abuja residence, is said to have carried out the acts on previous occasions with the support of high-ranking officials.

According to reports, Ajodo was involved in four similar cases of asset recovery raids on the homes of some prominent citizens, including the former military President, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar’s residence (retd.). A complement of security operatives led by Ajodo, a fake Chief Superintendent of Police, stormed Justice Odili’s Maitama residence on October 29, on the strength of a purported tip by a whistleblower, Aliyu Umar, who claimed to have observed suspicious activities at the Supreme Court Justice’s residence.

Ajodo, who claimed to be a consultant to the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, was paraded alongside other suspects by the police on Thursday in Abuja.

Police sources said the incident had led to the arrest and detention of about nine policemen, including a Superintendent of Police, all drawn from Zone 7, Abuja.

Ajodo’s alleged accomplices include Michael Diete-Spiff; two lawyers, Alex Onyekuru and Ernest Igwe; one Bayero Lawal; Aliyu Umar; Maimuna Maishanu; Ayodele Akindipe; Yusuf Adamu, and Bashir Musa.

Others are ASP Mohammed Yahaya; a journalist, Stanley Nkwazema; Shehu Jibo; Abdullahi Adamu, and a Lance Corporal simply identified as Mike.

The force spokesman, Frank Mba, had described them as “members of a well-organized criminal gang with a web-like involvement of individuals drawing from their different competencies, professional backgrounds, and social contacts in perfecting the criminal plot.”

Our correspondent gathered that the last botched raid carried out by Ajodo’s team on a purported intelligence that huge sums of money were warehoused in a building embarrassed the police leadership.

It was learned that Ajodo used to recruit operatives from the Intelligence Response Team, Force Intelligence Bureau, and other units for asset recovery operations sanctioned by unnamed senior officials.

A senior officer stated, “Initially, he used to recruit policemen from IRT, FIB for his raid on people’s homes but policemen stopped going with him on his assets recovery operations after the last failed operation he led at the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown in 2020. The operations were targeted at addresses, not individuals.

“He later gained some clout at the Ministry of Justice and continued his raids on homes but policemen stopped going with him after the 2020 incident which led to the detention of some officers from Zone 7.”

Items recovered from Ajodo included three vehicles, a laptop, two fake ID cards, a printer and a search warrant.