It’s the first time I’m hearing about this, but apparently it has been going on for a long time. If your car breaks down on the long bridge along the Lagos Ibadan Expressway, near the popular Berger Bus Stop, you are in deep trouble. Some herdsmen permanently stationed under the bridge leap up within minutes and attack you with arrows and dagger.
Latest victim is Brig. Gen. Sylvester Iruh (rtd) whose Toyota Hilux had a flat tyre on the bridge and was shot with an arrow while fixing it. The herdsmen reportedly stabbed him many times and even abandoned a dagger in him before proceeding to rob him and the occupants of his vehicle.
On the night of the attack on the gentleman and his relatives, four other victims with stab wounds were rushed to the Accident and Emergency Hospital, near 7 Up/old Toll Gate Ikeja where the Brig.Gen breathed his last. They were all reportedly attacked at the same location. They were however luckier to have survived their ordeals.
Several commentators have since then been coming out with stories of how that place has been a notorious den of primitive robbers armed with knives, bows and arrows for a very long time.
Incidentally, just nearby is a cattle market-cum-settlement of cattle-rearers/sellers. If this has been going on for this long, what are the authorities doing about it? Lagos State could claim it is out of its jurisdiction. But what is the Ogun State government doing about it? Is this not one of the challenges that the two states can collaborate to tackle, especially seeing as it affects the residents of the two states.
Must we wait until people resort to self-help and precipitate another Southerner versus Northerner blood-letting before our governors will drag their lazy backsides off their expensive chairs to do something?
No comments:
Post a Comment