Tuesday, 7 May, 2013 was an unusual day at Albert/Shipeolu streets around Palm Grove area of Lagos State. It was the day the narrow and quiet streets suddenly witnessed unusual traffic chaos which soon heightened suspicion among residents.
At the intersection of the adjoining streets about eight suspected cult members said to be of the Eiye Confraternity sect brandishing varying dangerous weapons stood.
The suspected cult members, reportedly led by one Adewale Awesu, stopped every vehicle that passed the vicinity and demanded for a certain amount of money.
While about four of the suspected cult members were busy extorting money from motorists at gun point, others were at another corner robbing passersby of their valuables. A Chisco truck driver, however, defied the threats from the suspected cult members leading to heavy gridlock in the area. Many of the passengers and passersby came to the spot of the confusion to actually see what was amiss.
But many of those curious ones all had various gory tales to tell as the hoodlums engaged them in fierce confrontation. One passerby, Ezekiel Gbadega, a painter, would not forget in a hurry the agony and bodily harm he suffered in the hands of the hoodlums. Gbadega, 36, is a resident of the area at 74, Shipeolu Street, Palm Grove area. He had reportedly left his shop earlier than normal that day and was around Mushin with a customer who had given himcN40, 000 to paint his car.
But when he got to the scene of the disturbance, he could not help but join his peers in attempting to repel the suspected cult members, but he got more than what he bargained for. While still arguing with the said hoodlums on their rationale to cause such a gridlock in his vicinity, one of them allegedly ran towards him and allegedly stabbed him with a broken bottle.
It was on his shoulder. While Gbadega groaned in pain, his Nokia mobile telephone handset was snatched from him and the N40, 000 meant to be used to paint his customer’s car taken away.
Another victim of the cultists attack was Kazeem Rafiu, who was reportedly beaten to pulp and severely injured by the rampaging cultists. Kazeem, 27, who also accosted the cultists hoping to help douse their threats eventually landed in a hospital when three of the men allegedly hit him with machetes and broken bottles. “I have not been so treated in all my life like the way they beat me that day.
When I saw the commotion they caused, I rushed there like any other person that wanted sanity in the area. But while I was trying to intervene in the whole matter, three of them swooped on me and held my clothes.
They started searching my pockets demanding that I bring all the money I had on me out,” Kazeem lamented. All his day’s earnings were reportedly snatched from him. Gbadega too narrated his ordeal: “It was really a bad day for everyone within that area. The bad boys had been coming regularly to the area before that day to cause mayhem.
They would stop vehicles and people passing and demand some funny amount of money from the motorists as if they are law enforcement agents,” Gbadega said. The ‘operation’ of the suspected cultists did not last more than half an hour, but the damage done by them would take a while to heal.
By the time they hurried out of the area when some residents had alerted policemen of the Pedro Police Station, no fewer than five cars had been vandalised by the cult members, a couple of shops broken to with money and valuables carted away while their owners were helpless to act.
A man identified as Mr Okey, whose Volvo car was reportedly vandalised by the hoodlums, explained that the area had come under the attack of bad elements in recent times adding that the situation calls for government and law enforcement agents to act fast before residents flee the area. Lagos State Police Command spokesperson, Ngozi Braide, could not be reached on telephone to comment on the matter as her lines were unavailable.
But a police source at Onipanu Police Station, who wanted anonymity, claimed that the entire area had lately been invaded by notorious elements lately and that his unit has just been briefed on their activities.
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