Father of three killed, mother, son shot

The shot five-year-old

A father of three was killed and a woman and her son sustained gunshot injuries, after some suspected hoodlums on Monday night, stormed the Fadeyi, Ikorodu area of Lagos State, shooting like they were reenacting a Hollywood western movie.

The man, Mr. Yusuf Olayinka, died after a stray bullet got him just as he was about to cross the road. The woman and her son sustained gunshot injuries while they were inside their shop.

The hoodlums, from the Mushin axis of Fadeyi stormed into different streets in the area, shooting sporadically. The reason for the mayhem is yet unknown. Flying bullets injured many, but Olayinka didn’t survive his own injury. He was pronounced dead at hospital the hospital he was rushed to.

A witness in the area said that the hoodlums who stormed the areas in motorbikes around 8:30pm, from Idi-Oro into Ogunjobi Street, shot intermittently and robbed passersby.

A resident said that after the hoodlums left, the lifeless body of a man, later identified as Olayinka was found in pool of his blood at Ogunjobi Bus Stop.

The deceased, who lived across the road, was waiting at the bus stop, to cross the Fadeyi Road when the stray bullet hit him. 

After the hoodlums left Ogunjobi Street, they went to Fasanaya Street, where their bullets injured mother and child.

Vehicles parked on the road were not spared. In fact, one of the vehicles was burnt and riddled with bullets holes.

Mrs. Shola Olayinka, widow of the man shot across the road, said: “The death of my husband came to me as a shock. He was the one who took our children to school that Monday morning before heading to his own destination. I was sleeping when my phone woke me around 9pm; someone called to tell me that my husband had been shot by some suspected hoodlums from Mushin area. They said he had been rushed to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital. When the fracas started everybody went indoors. When I got the call, the whole area was deserted. I was scared to go outside.”

Olayinka said that the following day, around 6am, she made a beeline for the hospital. When she got there she was told that her husband by the time sympathisers rushed to the hospital.  She said: “He was shot on the abdomen. I’m now left with three children. My husband’s life was wasted. He was not even a political thug.”

Mrs. Margaret Agbor, who survived the bullets with her five-year-old son, said she gave God all the glory.

Agbor said: “This crisis in Mushin had been on for too long. I was inside my shop with my son when I heard some youths had been causing trouble at Ogunnjobi Bus Stop.  I told my son that we should close and go home, so that we wouldn’t be caught in the cross-fire. I was about closing my shop, when I noticed that my son, who was sitting on the chair close, suddenly stood up. He shouted, ‘mummy blood!’ The blood was gushing out from his head and it appeared to me, like it was every part of his body. When the gunshot persisted, we locked ourselves inside the shop. After normalcy had returned, we were rushed to a private hospital.”

When the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Kenneth Nwosu was contacted to confirm the story, he didn’t reply to text message sent to him.