5th November, 2013
The spate of armed robbery attacks in residential areas in border towns in Lagos and Ogun states in recent weeks has again reached an alarming level and many residents have no other choice than to flee the affected areas to safer havens.
In Lambe area of Ogun State, many residents have been attacked in recent days while several others including policemen have been killed. The attacks take place both in broad daylight or in the night and the situation seems to have degenerated beyond what it was early in the year when the robbers became so emboldened that they sent an audacious letter to Lambe residents and begged them for a warm welcome.
There has been no respite for residents of the affected towns since robbers wrote to them in Yoruba language and pasted the letters on many walls and streets in the area, that they were going to strike ‘very soon’ and that they were not afraid of the police or other security agencies. Indeed, just days after the threat, they successfully carried out some robbery attacks, unchallenged by the police who had dismissed as a fluke the notice of an impending strike by the robbers. Since then the robbery attacks have been frequent and the police are so helpless that even the officers are victims of the attacks as was the case in October when one of them was killed, three injured and their rifles snatched by the robbers at Iju-Ishaga.
Those dark days seem to have returned and many people are moving out of the area. Many homeowners in Lambe are either selling their houses or abandoning them in the hope that they will return after the security situation improves.
With the festive season approaching, many residents fear that the robbery attacks may escalate as robbers get desperate to get more money. The robbers exploit the absence of community policing and policemen are hardly seen patrolling the streets in the affected areas.
The police should step up their game and protect the people in these towns. Community policing as well as patrolling the streets day and night should be intensified. We call on the commissioners of police in Lagos and Ogun States to deploy their men to those areas that have become the playground of armed robbers and other black spots around the state to curb the activities of the underworld men.