Day robbers’ unleashed hell in a Lagos village

Ezekiel on hospital bed after gun shot

The serenity which had always surrounded Ibasa village, in Oriade Local Government Area of Satellite was shattered on June 2, 2012, when daredevil robbers, in numbers yet unknown, stormed the village, shooting guns like they were a Wild West kind of Hollywood movie.

 The robbers, who appeared to have painstakingly planned the operation and arrived in a speed boat, were said to have spent hours, shooting and marauding round the village without being deterred.

By the time they were through, one Sunday Ezekiel was writhing in pain in front of his family home due to gunshot wounds.

The bandits shot at his left thigh, and the bullet perforated it, bursting out from the other side and narrowly missed perforating the right thigh. By the time he was finally rushed to hospital, it was discovered that the bones had been shattered.

Preliminary investigations had also revealed that the robbers came specifically for one of the resident in Ibasa village, called Shina Okolomo, believed to be one of the richest persons in the village.

The villagers were further shocked to their bone marrows when they discovered that the person who led the robbers into the village, was an enemy within.

This enemy within is fondly called Bobo by the villagers, who never believe in their wildest imagination, that he could harm or planned evil for them.

 Bobo is said to be between ages 18-20, smokes hemp and works as a speed boat driver in the village. He lives with his mum.

When the gang left the village in their speed boats, they had made for Abule-Osun, where they had a blood gun duel with a vigilante group. The vigilante group got hold of one of the robbers, who begged them not to hurt or torture him, that he would tell them everything they wanted to know.

It was in the course of his confession, that he revealed how they stormed and attacked Ibasa village. He further spilling the bean, he told them how Bobo, a resident in the village, led them into his town.

The vigilante quickly notified the king, who gathered other villagers to apprehend Bobo, handing him over to police in area E, Festac. Since his arrest, the gang members in police net have swelled to 11.

After Sunday Ezekiel was shot, his frantic family waited until the robbers had finished their Rambo skills, before they rushed to hospital. The first hospital rejected him, the second hospital, referred to a specialist at Agbara, towards Badagry area of Lagos State.

It was at this hospital that the Nigerian Compass tracked him to. He was on his bed, groaning in pains. Beside him sat his wife, Ife, looking worried and scared.

Narrating the incident that landed him in hospital bed, Ezekiel, a sand dredger and father of four explained that it was around 1: am last week Friday, when the gunmen invade their village, shot him and changed the course of his life, to one of untold pains.

His words: “I was sleeping when I heard the sound of gunshots. I checked the time, it was 1: am. I heard someone shouting Ole! Ole! It was partly the shouting that woke me up. I got up and went to wake my elder brother. As I opened the door to my room, I noticed somebody crawling through our passage. It was we knew the boy was one of the villagers. His name is Biodun. He had a rope tied around his two legs. He was crawling on his hands. I entered my grandmother’s room, snatched up two machetes. I gave one of the machetes to my brother and took one.

“The boy crawled into the room, where my brother uses as his sewing workshop. It was when I followed him to the room, that I discovered it was Biodun. He was shaking like a leaf. I asked him what the matter was, he couldn’t talk. All these while, gunshots continued to sound outside. The gunshots suddenly stopped, I waited for 30 minutes and decided to check if it policemen were around. As I opened the door slightly, I heard a gunshot, bang! A bullet had hit me on my thigh. I saw four men. They asked me what I was looking for. I shouted, ‘officer, I’m not a robber! I’m not a robber!. By then I had fallen to the ground, blood was everywhere. I noticed that the four of them, had on something like life jackets.

“They ordered me to go back inside the house. I couldn’t move, I tried to drag myself, but my right leg refused to cooperate. Only the left one was moving. I used my hands to drag my wounded leg as I crawled back into the house. I wanted to shout because of the intense pains that had engulfed my leg, but they said if I shout, they’ll kill me. The machete I had, had already fallen to the ground. When I got in, I told my family members to take me to hospital. I told them that I didn’t want to die. I was already feeling dizzy. But they could not do anything because the robbers were still operating. The gunshots started again.”

According to Ezekiel, the robbers came to rob Shina Okolomo’s home and the house of the man is the next building adjacent to theirs.

To stem the flow of the blood, Ezekiel’s brother tied a cloth over the gun wound. About 30 minutes later, the reverberating gunshot sounds stopped. It was after that Ezekiel heard a woman shouting, calling for help. It was the voice of the mother of Shina Okolomo.

“Alhaja came; she’s the mother to Shina. She came to our house, saw me and intensified her call for help. Tessy, came to help my brother in carrying to hospital. I couldn’t walk. They took me to Osenyo hospital, close to our area. The doctor looked at the leg and said he can’t treat that sort of wound. He however gave  me injection through the month. We crossed the river and Okolomo brought his car and drove us to Everton hospital at Oluti. The doctor started treatment, but asked us to go and get police report. He started treatment because I had already lost a lot of blood,’ recollected Ezekiel.

The doctor had further instructed them to go for X-ray, which showed that the bone had been shattered. He was still receiving treatment at the hospital when policemen showed up to take statement from him.

The doctor later told him that he could not treatment him, referring him to Strong Tower Specialist hospital at Agbara, where they would be able to mend his bones, if possible.

His wife, Ife, told the Nigerian Compass that since they had accommodation problem, her husband had had to go and stay at the village, at their family house, while she took the four kids to stay with her mother at Ijegun.

She said that she received news of the shooting at about 2: am on that fateful day.

It was her husband who broke the news to her.

She said: “He called me, he was crying, saying mama Mathew, they’ve shot me! They’ve shot me! I almost went mad with worry and fear. I was screaming, I started running around the house, I called my mother. I called the village, begging them to take my husband to hospital before he dies. They said it was still too early, especially since the robbers were still there. When it was about 5: am, they took him to hospital. I went there to meet them.”

She added: “This is the first time this sort of big robbery had ever happened in the village. We want police to investigate and prosecute the gang members that had been arrested.

Alhaja, the mother of Shina Okolomo, told the Nigerian Compass how she came face to face with the gunmen. According to her it was around 1am, when she realized robbers had gained entry into their compound. The robbers scaled the fence of the building to land into the compound, then climbed the walls of the building to land at one of the windows and used iron cutter to cut through the burglarproof.

They crawled through the part they cut opened and landed into one of the sitting rooms, from there; they located the master’s bedroom, where Shina Okolomo and his wife were.

When Shina heard the noise, he opened his door, saw the gunmen and ran back, trying to lock the door from inside. There was a struggle on the door, but the gunmen defeated him. Shina’s wife watched the struggle and feared for her husband, two kids and the entire household.

Mrs. Shina said: “They ordered us to lie on the ground faced down. They were shouting, where’s the money, where’s the money. My husband said there was no money. We had only N11, 000 in the house. They took it. I told them, not to hurt us, that they could take my jewelries. They did.”

When the Nigerian Compass went into the room, gunshots covered the door, windows and walls. The story was the same on the outside walls of the compound. Two among the robbers were at the gate, six inside Shina’s house and others in strategic places at the village.

Alhaja said: “I heard gunshots. I left my room and tried to run outside. As I opened the gate, barrage of bullets greeted. It was by God’s grace that I wasn’t shot. I ran back and went to hide in the generator shed.”

She was still hiding, with generator fumes, filling her nostrils and exhausting burning her skin, but she refused to step out, fearing for her life. But her hiding was like the classical duck, hiding its head in water, while the anus is seen by the world.

“I picked a bucket and covered my face. They walked through the gate, came to the shed and laughed when they saw me. They asked me if that was the way to hide, that do I think I was hiding?  I hide there until they left,” said Alhaja. “Another of my son came out to join me and lie face down in the generator shed. One of my sons went to hide inside our water tank at the back of the house.”

Segun popoola, brother to Mrs. Shina, had to jump into the river when the robbers broke into the compound. He said he was going to try to look for help.

He said: “I used to sleep downstairs. When I heard the noise and I peeped, I saw them struggling with the door. I knew they were robbers. I ran out and jumped into the water. My thought was to go and get help. I didn’t know there were two at the gate. I ran into them. They asked me where is the money, where is the money. I said I don’t have any money. They asked me where I live; I said in the village, that I went to defecate. They started shooting at any door which tried to open. One of them ordered to enter a particular house and not to come out. That was how I escaped.”

The king of Ibasa village, Alhaji Yisa Adagu said that the village is begging the government and the Inspector General of Police, to assist them in creating a police post in the village.

“Let them give us security, we’re not safe,” he said. “There’s no police station or police post in Ibasa to deter criminals.”

Due to lack of police presence in the village, Adagu used to act as police, prosecutor and magistrate in dispensation of matters in the village. He explained that when some matters become too tough for him to handle, he usually refer the matter to police.

He added: “We used to call on Agboju or Festac Police Stations, which are too far for us. We’ve never seen the sort of robbery and shootings that happened in this village on that Friday. The men all had guns. When the incident happened, many people said it must have been somebody from the village that brought them. When the vigilante group caught them, they said it was Bobo, a young man from this village. Bobo told them that Shina is rich and usually brings lumps sums of money to the house.”

When the king discovered that it was Bobo, a hemp smoking youth who brought the bandits into his village, he ordered that every shanty in the village, where people used to smoke hemp, should be pulled down.

The Vice chairman of the Youths in the village, who also serves as the community secretary, Mr. Abayomi Tolani, told the Nigerian Compass that since they pulled down the shanties, they had known no peace.

“We’ve been receiving threatening text messages,” said Tolani. “Yes, I’m worried about my family and I’ve reported the case to the community king and chiefs, but I’ve not reported officially to the police. I leave my family in the hands of God!”

When the Nigerian Compass met with the police spokesman, Mr. Jaiyeoba Joseph, to find out many of the robbers had been arrested and when they would be charged to court, he made calls to area L commander, the jurisdiction he believed Ibasa village was under, but came up empty.

He however discovered that another robbery, where robbers invade the village in a speed boat, had also taken place at Ibeshe village. The robbers were however arrested and three rifles recovered from them.

Joseph had further tried area E, Festac command, and hit gold. The case was there alright, but the new area commander Mr. Dan Okoro would rather speak with the Nigerian Compass on his own. When the Nigerian Compass called the Mr. Okoro, he said he had only just resumed and not well abreast of the case. Mr. Okoro had been on the saddle of area E leadership, for three weeks plus now.