A Nigerian lady, Olamide, has taken to X (Twitter) to narrate her ordeal at the hands of street thugs, locally known as area boys, on the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos.
In a tweet on Sunday, September 7, 2025, Olamide said she was going home in an Uber while conversing with her father on the phone when the car broke down.
She recalled that they had not parked for longer than a few minutes when eight thugs appeared from nowhere.
According to her, they asked the Uber driver to give them N50,000 before he would be allowed to effect any repair on his car.
She said the driver told them he had no money to give them, and they became aggressive with him, threatening him.
Olamide said she was getting scared and then offered to give them the money so they could leave the man alone to concentrate on what was wrong with the car.
She said the boys then shifted their attention to her and asked her to come down from the vehicle.
The young woman said they changed their demand to N100,000 and threatened that they would all rape her if she failed to yield.
Olamide said her saving grace was that she did not cut the call she was on with her father, so he heard everything.
She said her father called the police and gave them her location, and they arrived on time before any harm could befall them.
Olamide explained that she and her siblings were all on an app called Life360, which updated their father with their respective locations.
According to her, the app reports their movement to their father 24 hours a day, so long as they have their data on.
Olamide called on other road users to be mindful of the threat on the Third Mainland Bridge.
Other Lagosians have been sharing similar experiences under her comments.
Big Steph, tweeting with @iyy_un, wrote: “I had a similar experience with my driver. The thugs asked for 50k, and when he tried to negotiate, they threatened to throw him in the water. The worst part was that the police on the bridge didn’t help; they also collected money, so we ended up paying both sides.”
Fego said he also experienced the same thing on the same bridge in 2022. He said they were driving their personal car when it developed a fault.
“We just saw thugs from nowhere, and they were asking us to pay 200k or they would push us into the water and run away. We later paid 70k with begging,” he recalled.
A video editor and web development expert, John, also recalled his own experience.
He recalled that he was returning from the beach with his friends in 2023 when his car ran out of fuel.
John recalled that two thugs came out to threaten them. He recalled that his second experience was this year at Berger.
Other commenters called on the police and other security operatives to rid the roads of thugs who perpetrate opportunistic crimes when people have car troubles on Lagos roads.
Also Read: Woman jumps into lagoon from Third Mainland Bridge
