There is a spike in the cases of robbery incidents in Lagos, according to residents.
Muggings and other opportunistic crimes also seem to have returned to the ever-busy city amidst the rising cost of living.
A resident told MicroSecondNews that she came across an unusual spectacle of street urchins approaching slow-moving vehicles in traffic on approach to the Ojodu- Berger area of Lagos on the Lagos Ibadan Expressway from Kara on Wednesday.
“One of the boys took me by surprise by suddenly appearing at my passenger window out of the blue, and I had to swerve on impulse. Although I had my windows wound up, I instinctively swerved out of his reach, forcing him to leave me alone in search of someone else” she recounted.
She said it was the first time she would have such an experience in that part of her route on her daily commute to her office in Victoria Island, Lagos.
Punch newspaper also reported a surge in house raids on some Lagos communities, such as Lawani Street, off Ishaga Road, Surulere, where armed robbers stole cash and properties on the night of July 18.
Other areas where robbery cases were recorded in the last two weeks included Surulere, Abule Egba, Ikeja and Akowojo-Egbeda in the Alimosho area of Lagos.
A resident named Juwon told the publication he was robbed of his phone and the money in his account by knife-wielding hoodlums.
“I was returning from the Afrikan Shrine where I went to attend Seun Kuti’s show last week. But in the morning when we were returning, I alighted from a tricycle when some boys in the area accosted me. They took my Tecno phone. They both had knives. It was around 7 am. Before I got to the bank that day, I discovered that N27,000 that was in my account had gone,” Juwon said.
According to residents of the Akowonjo-Egbeda area of the Alimosho Local government Area, robbers invaded houses in the area in the early hours of July 13 and made away with cash and properties.
A witness identified as Mama Sarumi, said the hoodlums arrived around 2 am and shot indiscriminately.
She said, “They came with one LT Volkswagen bus that had no number plate and when they came down, they started to shoot in the air. I lost my phone to them. They also robbed some of the people like me who sell here in the middle of the night and they collected phones and money from them. They were not even afraid of the police. They were not in a hurry. They just divided themselves into groups and were ‘obtaining’ people.
“Many people ran into Oke, Ajani Akingbogun and Alhaji Idowu Streets. I don’t think the police can match them because they were not afraid at all.”
Contacted on the trend of robberies, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, said statistics available to the police did not indicate an upsurge, but emphasised that residents needed to report all cases of robbery at the police station to help the force to better strategise.
“Even if you feel like you won’t get your stolen things back, at least, report so that at the end of the month, we can get statistics to know which particular areas these are happening and at what particular time. We encourage people to report incidents to help us improve on our anti-crime strategy.”
