Robbery attacks on Adio, Ekimogun streets and Kehinde Lane in the Bariga area of Lagos State have become incessant in recent time. This development has reportedly sacked some residents from their homes, Punch reports.
It was learnt that Adio residents were attacked three times last week. While Ekimogun Street experienced two attacks, Kehinde Lane was invaded once. However, during the raid of Ekimogun, a newly-wed woman who just moved into their home with her husband was raped while her husband was forced to watch.
In the same vein, the security guard of a nursery and primary school on Adio Street was bound by his hands and feet and beaten up severely.
The frequency of the attacks and the inability of the police to address the scourge have forced some of the residents to form local vigilantes to ward off the robbers.
One Olubukola, who identified herself as the landlady in one of the houses, said her children had stopped going to school because she no longer sleeps at home. She said despite not staying at home, the robbers still broke into her room and carted away valuables.
Olubukola said, “They have entered my house three times now. The first time was early Monday morning. They ransacked all the flats in the building. In the wee hours of Thursday, they returned and stole more things. Because of all these, people stopped living in their houses. My children and I now squat in a friend’s apartment in Alagbado.
“But on Friday morning, we returned and discovered the robbers had come and because they did not meet anybody, they broke in and took away my television and DSTV decoder,” the landlady added.
In another apartment on the street, the robbers reportedly carted away handsets, laptops, money and ATM cards.
A resident, one Solomon Johnson, said, “They demanded the PINs of the cards. After they left and discovered that the PINs were incorrect, they returned to the room the next day and attacked the owners for giving them wrong PINs. They then asked for the correct PINs from them,” Johnson noted.
It was gathered that the robbers, who were mostly teenagers and in their early 20s, wielded cutlasses, crowbars and axes.
A resident said while some wore masks, others did not hide their faces.
Another resident, Solomon, said he was attacked with a cutlass after the robbers thought he was hiding phones from them.
According to him, “They cut my leg with a cutlass and beat me up, telling me to release the phones. I told them I did not have any phone. I was admitted in the hospital for two days,” Solomon lamented.
On Ekimogun where the rape took place, a resident said the incident happened around 2am.
He said, “There is a sports viewing centre around here and some of us stay there. If we knew a robbery was going on we could have done something, but those robbers sneaked in and held those people hostage.
“The woman just moved into the house with her husband. They got married less than a month ago. One of the robbers raped her. She was taken to the hospital the next day for treatment,” he noted.
A community leader and Chairman, Security Committee for Adio Community, Femi Emiko, said the robbers always escape through the Oworonsoki Expressway, adding that the police were not using the right technique to arrest them.
He said, “Actually, within one week, they have visited Adio five times. They have turned this community to an ‘ATM machine’ where they can withdraw money anytime they like. The police usually comes around, but immediately the robbers hear their siren, they run away. We have been having meetings to see how to form vigilante group and fight these robbers. They are young guys and we can win this fight,” the community leader quipped.
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