Two criminals who had been convicted and sentenced after they were found guilty of conspiracy and stealing exhibited an unprecedented bravado in Nigeria’s Isolo Magistrates court by setting the record straight that they are thieves, but not armed robbers.

P.M EXPRESS reported Akeem Jimoh and Rafiu Afolayan as having told the presiding Magistrate, Mrs. A.O. Teluwo that “Please, we are thieves, not armed robbers” after she had sentenced them to one year imprisonment with no option of fine.

They told the court that unlike armed robbers who go about their criminal acts violently by using dangerous weapons, they only go out at night to break into people’s shops and steal their valuables for sale.

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The convicts emphasized that they chose to be harmless and when they visited a particular shop and the owner was around all they did was to return and came back later.

Their day of reckoning came when they reportedly broke into a shop of one Mrs. Lolade Alanga at Suebatu Street Oshodi Road in Oshodi, Lagos at night and made away with items valued at N3m.

They were however caught at Aswani market where they had taken the booty to for sale, after security operatives in the market suspected them.

They were then handed over to the police and they admitted having stolen the items.

Apparently, during the proceedings the judge had referred to them as armed robbers, but Akeem Jimoh and Rafiu Afolayan remained quite because they had not known their fate.

It was after their sentencing when they realized the damage had already been done, that they exercised their utmost bravado by educating the judge that, per their modus operandi, there is a vast distinction between them and armed robbers.