25th July, 2011
The Lagos State Government Secretariat, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria, is no longer safe as armed robbers constantly invade the seat of power and cart away valuables.
Despite the presence of the headquarters of the Rapid Respond Squad (RRS) at the secretariat, robbers have continued to carry out raids on the place an no one has ever been caught except one who was said to have stolen a fire extinguisher.
At the weekend, the incessant raid of the secretariat by robbers continued when a Honda, 2009 model with Lagos registration number, LR 655 EKY, was vandalised and unspecified amount of money carted away.
It was gathered that the robbers drove into the secretariat in a tinted Land Rover 2009 Sport Utility Vehicle with Abuja registration number GB 878 ABC.
They were said to have traced the owner of the Honda car to the rear parking lot of the Ministry of Education, where they vandalised the wind shield at the driver’s side, before carting away the undisclosed sum of money.
Alausa Rhythms gathered that the incident took place around 4 p.m. on Frday and the attention of workers and passers-by was drawn when attempt to access the vehicle triggered off an alarm.
Sensing danger, the robbers, said to be two in number, quickly took the money, jumped into their SUV and attempted to drive out of the secretariat, not knowing that the information had been passed round among security officers who promptly shut all exits from the secretariat.
The robbers, however, quickly abandoned their car at the Ministry of Housing and fled.
In recent times, there had been several robbery incidents at the secretariat. The latest being the one that occurred two months ago when about N3 million belonging to a contractor was stolen from his car.
At other instances, N500,000 and N1 million respectively were carted away by robbers at various robbery incident at the secretariat.
Alausa Rhythms observed that security at the secretariat is very porous and with the rate of bombings across the country, somethign drastic ought to be done about it.
However, civil servants have simply resigned to fate, praying that God would protect them from the inevitable as security at the secretariat is at the lowest ebb.