Gangsterism Reign in Lagos As Police Arrest Cultists Turned Robbers

By Wale Abydeen/LAGOS// Gangsterism is a trending menace ravaging the youths in their numbers. Particularly among the urban settlers, young boys and girls now form  dangerous gangs basically to harass and extort other members of their immediate society.

Unlike the cultism known to higher institutions of learning who restrict activities to their school campuses, youths who have never been to the polytechnic or university now fraternize in groups as Eiye and Aiye confraternity and sometimes other nomenclature like Awawa, Agburin Sqaurd etc. Even when they lack discipline, code or conduct and relationships  with the campus cult lords, they have continued to involve in ritualism , brandishing dangerous weapons and of course terrorizing the society. The end result of these criminal act is that the perpetrators become notorious robbery gangs which portend danger to national security

In Lagos, it has been the rise and rise of gangsterism or street cultism. They kill, maim, extort, rape, rob, and assault innocent citizens. It has been discovered that the police make arrests after each of their criminal acts but investigations also depict that some highly placed Nigerians come to lobby police for their release. This may have suggested why the menace keeps recurring

Last Friday night however, Police arrested suspected robbers, who are also members of Aiye and Eiye Confraternities. The gang were arrested by the Operatives of Rapid Response Squad, RRS after a failed attempt to dipsos two occupants of a vehicle in Iyana Ipaja area of Lagos State.

The suspects, Abbey Kolawole, (40), Ikenna Eze  (30) and Femi (now at large) had accosted two occupants of a vehicle, who were having private discussions.

The occupants were reported to have locked and rolled up themselves in the car before the suspects got there.

According to Eze, Femi, the leader of gang, brandishing gun, ordered the occupants to alight from the car but they refused.

“He shot into the air, and threatened to shoot the occupants. He was attempting to fire the second shot when the locally made double barrel gun hooked”, he noted.

By this time, the residents of the area had emerged to check what was happening. The robbers fled in different directions and abandoned their gun.

While the leader of the gang escaped, both Kolawole and Eze were unlucky as residents who they were scaling their fences apprehended them and handed them over to the officers of Rapid Response Squad, who intercepted distress call of robbery in the area.

According to Eze, Femi invited the gang out to the house of a resident of Shagari Estate, Iyana – Ipaja with the intent of killing him.

 He had stated in his statement to police that one of the occupants of the vehicle, had threatened to kill Femi.

Eze further stated that the man they attacked had earlier besieged Femi’s residence in Agege Abattoir in company of many cult members and threatened to kill him. But Femi in retaliation wanted to maim the man first.

He added that their “plan was to shoot the man in the leg but after firing the first

shot into the air, the gun hooked and before he could reload it, residence had converged and were moving towards us.

Femi was the one who knew the road, he escaped while we, strangers in that com

The two suspects confirmed they are members of Aiye and Eiye confraternities.

Recovered from the suspects were a locally made double barrel cut to size shot gun, three live cartridges and one expended cartridge.

CP Hakeem Odumosu, the new Lagos Commissioner of Police, thanked the members of Shagari Estate, Ipaja for cooperating with the police in the arrest of the robbers. He urged communities in the state to partner with the police in crime fighting.

Eniola Awokoya, Lagos Scribe of the Nigerian Guild of Investigative Journalists, NGIJ applauds the police for swift response which led to the arrest of the two gangster turned robbers. She however charges the police to prosecute the suspect without fear or favour. The NGIJ scribe who speaks at the Muritala Muhammed International Airport while embarking on a journey to Maiduguri in an invitation from the Nigerian Army for assessment tour on war against insurgence noted that “the NGIJ has been concerned about the role of some prominent politicians who seem to be sponsoring thugs in Lagos”