13th December, 2010
For the past few months residents of Idi-Oro, Akala, Moshalasi, Fadeyi, Somolu, Bariga, Mushin and Abule Ijesa among many others in Lagos State have watched helplessly as their children, wives and fathers are killed in cult wars that have in recent times engulfed the areas.
A few weeks ago, some young men suspected to be members of a cult group unleashed terror on residents of Elekoro area of Mushin. They numbered about 15, wore black T-shirts and were armed with dangerous weapons. A few days later some criminal elements stormed Akala and Alakara area of Mushin and clashed with another group, leaving one person dead and several others wounded. Alakara and Akala are just a shouting distance from a Alakara Police Division.
On Tuesday 7 December, youths and drug peddlers clashed around the railway line in Fadeyi which resulted in the death of nine-year-old Aminat Oladepo, a primary three pupil of Ola Emma Nursery and Primary School, Mushin.
She was sent on an errand by her parents and on sighting the hoodlums, she hid behind a parked car but when the criminals sighted her, she was shot and killed for no apparent reason.
A day after Amina was killed, two other people were killed in what was described as a reprisal attack. Weekly, people lose their lives in this area and the police seem too lethargic to arrest the situation.
The cult wars are between different rival groups that include the National Union of Road Transport Workers, the OPC, Eiye Cult, Black Axe Confraternity, Akala Boys and others too numerous to mention, through leaders of some of the groups have denied the allegation.
Recently, some residents of Akala visited P.M.NEWS and denied that Akala area was still notorious. They said the residents had formed an alliance to keep the cultists out of their area and that they had started mobilizing to protect themselves from the criminal gangs.
We think it was time government waded into this warfare and once and for all stop the activities of these murderous gangs.
It is not as if the police is unaware of the problem but policemen are usually powerless as the wars are quick affairs after which the gangs disappear. A police source also blamed politicians for the upsurge in the cult wars in recent times. He added that whenever the boys are arrested, highly placed government officials call for their release, which makes it impossible to prosecute them to serve as a deterrent to others of their ilk.
Government has waited enough, it must move now; we cannot allow Lagos State, the commercial nerve centre of Nigeria, to become another Abia State where criminal gangs of kidnappers reigned. We cannot afford to wait until an important personality dies in the crossfire before we douse the flames of the gang wars.
The self-imposed curfew by people of these areas is uncalled for. Losing lives everyday should not be allowed in a civilized society. The police must step up their act and start arresting these hoodlums. We are not at war and must not allow anybody, no matter how highly placed to disrupt commercial and social activities endangering lives and subjecting people to a state of constant fear.
Enough is enough. Tax payers must not become victims of security threats. The gangs must be apprehended and prosecuted. We have lost too many innocent souls to these criminals and now is the time to stop them.
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