Outcry as robbers lay siege to Lagos neighbourhood

• Culprits were hoodlums dislodged from rail line axis —Task Force chair

Residents of New Oko Oba, a Lagos suburb, have cried out following incessant robbery attacks in the night and wee hours, reports KUNLE AKINRINADE.

EVERYDAY, Michael Olowa, a young marketer with a leading insurance firm in Lagos Mainland usually passes through the railway line area of Fagba along Iju Ishaga road. From there, he would trek to his residence at New Oko Oba into the warm embrace of his wife and two children. But last week, he collapsed into prolonged moments of sadness, following a robbery attack on him while returning home. On that day, Olowa had barely crossed the railway line into an adjoining street leading to his home, when he was accosted by three boys who wasted no time in dispossessing him of his valuables, including an HP laptop, undisclosed cash, and two android phones, at gunpoint.

“It was like a scene from the movies when the boys swooped on me laughing and pointing a pistol at me to surrender my valuables. They initially pretended to have missed their way by asking me for direction to a strange street. It was while I stopped to answer them that they robbed me of my money, phones and laptop.

“The value of my loss to the robbery was huge because some of the assignments I was handling for my company were stored as files on the laptop computer snatched from me by the heartless boys.”

It was the same experience for Mrs Ayishat Adebayo, a trader at the Ogba area of Ikeja, who tasted the bile of robbers on October 3 this year on Jonathan Coker Road that stretches from Fagba Bus Stop toward another adjoining road leading to Abule Egba.

The woman was returning home on the said day at about 7:30 pm when some boys emerged from the dark and slapped her to submission before fleeing with the proceed of her day’s sales and handset.

She explained that bystanders thought she had a fight with the boys until she yelled out after the boys had left, that she had just been robbed.

“I was just dazed beyond words after the incident. I was given some money to transport myself home by sympathisers. Since then, I have stopped trekking home on the road at night.”

Other areas/victims

Adelani Jacob had no inkling that danger was lurking after he cashed some money at a nearby ATM machine of a new generation bank and headed home on a commercial tricycle and alighted at Olaniyi junction, from where he hoped to walk down home. He had barely paid his fare when two men accosted him and demanded he surrender the money and bag on him or risk death.

“I thought they were joking until one of them pulled a pistol on me, while his accomplice removed my bag, phone and the money in my pocket. I was just too shocked to offer any form of resistance. When I narrated my ordeal to my neighbours at home, they urged me to thank God that the robbers did not brutalise me. They cited the case of a man who died from injuries sustained from a similar robbery attack a few months back.”

A petrol attendant in the Abule Egba, who lives in Puposola area of New Oko Oba, Raheem Sanusi, said he lost his salary to a three-man gang while he was returning home at night last month.

“As a filling station supervisor, I usually close late. So, on September 30, I left my place of work in Abule Egba on an okada at about 10: 20pm. I was walking down the road to my house when four boys rushed at me and wanted to take a small bag that I was holding in my hand from me. I asked them not to worry, thinking they were boys in the neighbourhood who knew me and were being courteous. But I was wrong. When I asked them not to bother helping me carry my bag home, they slapped me and threatened to kill me if I did not hand over the bag and other valuables. They robbed me at gunpoint and fled in different directions. They took away the bag containing a sum of N15,000, which was my salary, and a Samsung android phone.”

Other victims

While the two victims were robbed at night, other victims were attacked in the wee hours while leaving home for work. Some of the roads commonly used by the robbers include Agric Road, Puposola, Olaniyi and Jonathan Coker Close, Pipeline Way, Olaofe Road and Mofoladayo Drives, among others.

In some instances, robbers posed as commercial motorcycle operators, popularly called okada, to rob residents early in the morning. One of such cases was that of Emmanuel Robert, a worker in a metal factory in Ikeja, who was rushing to resume work around 6 am and was brutalised by okada robbers on Agric Road. He lost his phone and a sum of N5,000 to the fiendish men who fled on their motorbike.

Robert said he was hospitalised for one week as a result of the severe beatings meted to him by the robbers. That was in the course of struggling with them for his wallet and the mobile telephone he bought three days to the incident.

“I had heard stories about how people were robbed on the road, but it did not occur to me that I would become a victim one day. On the day of the unfortunate incident, I set out at about 5:30 am in order to meet up with my resumption time –7 am.

“I was walking fast along the road when some boys, who rode on a motorcycle, pulled up by my side and started raining blows on me, yelling at me that I should surrender my phone and money. I resisted them because I had just bought the Nokia phone after I lost the one I was using before. They were infuriated and subjected me to several blows on my face. It was God that saved me; otherwise, I would have lost my sight to the incident.

“I was hospitalised for one week and doctors said that I was lucky that vital areas of my eyes escaped my assailants’ blows. I have not been taking the road since then for fear of being attacked again”.

Another victim, Ishola Taiwo, a building contractor, said he was robbed while passing through The Fagba railway line area in the early hours of October 3, 2018.

“I was on my way to meet up with one of my clients and I decided to pass through a close just after the railway line at about 6 am on the day when three men rushed at me and dispossessed me of my two phonbes, wristwatch and a sum of N6000.

When I raised alarm, passers-by gave them a hot chase but they escaped through an opening of a wire barricade erected by the state government to restrict access to the railway line area.”

Criminals’ hideout

The Nation gathered that the robbers had been operating from shanties and illegal structures erected around the Fagba railway junction, until they moved into the streets and communities to unleash terror on innocent residents, especially passers-by.

It will be recalled that in June this year, the Lagos States Government served seven days removal notice to all owners and occupiers of illegal structures, shanties, and containarised shops around Abattoir and New Oko-Oba, Agege.

At the expiration of the ultimatum, the Chairman of the Lagos State Task Force on Environmental and Special Offences, Mr Olayinka Egbeyemi, led the enforcement team of the agency and demolished over 2,500 illegal structures, shanties and containerised shops around Fagba railway side and Abbatoir. It was learnt that dangerous weapons were recovered from the scene of the demolition exercise.

Egbeyemi said the illegal shanties served as haven for miscreants and hoodlums who terrorised innocent residents in the community by dispossessing them of their valuables, including phones, cash and jewellery at night and in the wee hours.

He said: “It was an eyesore with miscreants and hoodlums freely smoking and selling Indian hemp. Underage boys and girls also engaged in prostitution around the area.”

Also, in a similar raid on Iludun area of New Oko Oba in August, operatives of the Lagos State Task Force arrested 210 miscreants and impounded 125 motorcycles.

The Nation gathered that the operation was carried out based on complaints by residents of the community. Egbeyemi said that the miscreants were those recently dislodged by the agency along railway line axis of New Oko Oba.

“It was an eye-sore as these dislodged miscreants and street urchins were freely smoking and selling Indian hemp around residential premises where you have under age school girls and boys.

“The demolished illegal shanties and containarised shops within abattoir and adjourning streets, aside from being on the landscape and harbouring criminals, are contributing to the under growth of health, environment and safety issues.”

While Egbeyemi and his men might have succeeded in pulling down the unlawful structures, the situation has not really changed as the miscreants are still thriving in the area.

When The Nation visited the area on Wednesday, hemp smoking boys were seen having a free day in and around a stretch adjoining Agric Road and another stretch of road leading to Abattoir.

A source, who asked not to be named, said: “Initially, crime rate went down in this area after the demolition exercise, but the boys have since returned to unleash terror on innocent residents. They now sleep inside some stationery trailers and trucks on the road and have become serious security threat to the peace of this neighbourhood.”

A trader at Daddy Savage Mini Market, Kingsley Attah, attributed the rising cases of robbery in the area to lack of proactive security measures to keep the perpetrators in check.

He lamented: “Not a few people have been attacked and robbed by hoodlums lately. We want the state government and police to rescue us from robbers. Although, I am not a victim, but some of my customers and friends have been robbed either on their way home or while going out both at night and in the morning.”

A community leader, Elder Soji Bolorunduro, urged the state government and law enforcement agents to carry out constant surveillance and patrol of the area at night and in the morning.

“The miscreants are the ones responsible for the spate of robbery attacks on residents in recent times here. We were happy when they were flushed out by the Lagos Task Force in June, this year, with a corresponding decrease in robbery attacks and other vices.

“However, they are back and have been operating freely in the community. They have now resorted to sleeping inside trailers and trucks parked on the road and have been terrorising people at nightfall and at dawn.

“We are urging law enforcement agencies to step up patrol and surveillance of New Oko Oba with a view to preventing these boys from continuing with their terror on innocent people.”

Another community leader, Alhaji Hajeem Hussain, also called on the police and other security forces to prevent trucks being used to bring cattle to the nearby abattoir from being parked in the area.

“These trucks are being used by some of these boys as shelter after their shanties have been destroyed by the Lagos State Task Force in June. The trucks should be removed and the entrance from the wire barricade around the railway line should be close to prevent the hoodlums from gaining access to the neighbourhoods.”