It wakes early and sleeps late. And all through the day, it remains boisterous. From about 5:00am, it begins to come alive with all manner of activities but it becomes more animated at sunrise. Even at dusk, it still kicks. Welcome to Iyana-Iba bus stop along Lagos-Badagry Expressway.
Iyana-Iba is like an octopus with fingers pointing at different directions. It is an arterial road leading to Ojo, Mile 2, LASU-Iyana Ipaja and Badagry-Seme border.
It is home to markets and shopping complexes, where virtually everything is bought and sold. It is also home to the ubiquitous okada riders and social miscreants known in local parlance as area boys. Indeed, it is
home to all kinds of stuffs, all kinds of characters. It is a haven of chaos and confusion. Lawless avenue
Iyana-Iba could be described as a place where the law is an ass. It is a place where outlaws are laws unto themselves. There, pick pockets and sundry criminals have a field day. There, commercial bus drivers, okada riders, traders, cart pushers and touts have no regard for constituted authority.
The drivers and okada riders park their vehicles and motorcycles indiscriminately, obstructing traffic flow. Traders display their wares on the road. In fact, at Iyana-Iba, deviants reign supreme. Ironically, an Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) is stationed there round the clock with law enforcement officers in place. Yet, the illegalities go on unchallenged.
Killers nest Investigations revealed that assassin are on hire at Iyana-Iba. At a spot on LASU-Iyana Ipaja Road axis, a group of men in their mid 20s and early 30s stand or sit leisurely, gesturing to prospective clients. They advertise their business by making a sign of slashing the throat with the fingers. It is a sign understood by the initiated.
Our undercover reporter gathered that there is no fixed amount for securing the services of the killers. Some factors are put into consideration in determining the cost of a job. For instance, a woman can be assisted to eliminate her spouse or lover for the sum of N100,000 or less. In that case, she would be required to make the job easy by breaking his defences, so to say.
A source said: “Some of the things considered while negotiating for a job is the location. If the target resides where he or she is accessible, the price tag comes low but if he is a resident of high security neighbourhood, the customer will pay more. If the target is mobile, that is if he has a car, it will also come into consideration.
If he has a driver, it will also be considered because with another person in the picture, the job becomes risky. But to knock off an average guy, about N200,000 will do the job.” The source further said that in negotiating the cost of a job, another consideration would be whether a gun or knife would be used. If it is a job that can be done with a knife, hammer or axe, it will be cheaper than using a gun.
On the method of payment, he said that 50 percent of the agreed sum would be paid before the job is done. The balance will be offset after the job has been done. He added that any attempt to play smart with the boys by way trying not to keep with agreement would be disastrous. “The boys know how to collect their balance. No doubt about that”, he stressed.
It was gathered that before a job is carried, the customer would provide the boys with logistics. These include necessary information about the target as well as his photograph if possible. With that, the target will be trailed for a couple of days and whenever the time is considered right, he will be knocked off.
Our undercover reporter equally gathered that the boys also undertake such jobs as acid bathing. For between N30,000 and N100,000, the job will be done. Again, it depends on the security considerations among other issues. If the target is an early riser, somebody who goes to work very early in the morning or returns late at night, the job is considered easier and attracts a pocket friendly charge.
Drugs, ganja paradise At Iba, marijuana otherwise known as Indian hemp, ganja and Igbo are freely sold and smoked. In the early hours of the day, area boys can be seen smoking all sorts of stuff around the complex on the LASU-Iyana Ipaja Road axis. But in the afternoon, the rendezvous is shifted inside the complex where there are shops not in use. In fact, some of the shops serve as rendezvous for Indian hemp smoking and drug sniffing.
Again, all kinds of illicit drinks are sold and taken openly there. Some of them are laced with drugs and aphrosidiacs and are called such names as monkey tail, pepper soup, awapa and jedi etc. Communities at the mercy of criminals
Investigations revealed that some communities at that axis are being terrorised by criminals almost on a daily basis. One of such communities is Iba New Site, an emerging sub-urban community, in Iba Local Council Development Authority. Indeed, the community is under armed robbery siege. The community, according to sources, has not known peace in the last one year. Armed bandits have literally taken over the entire community, terrorising and stealing, maiming, destroying and even killing in some cases with impunity.
There is no difference between daytime and night for the robbers. They strike anytime at will without any hindrance. Investigations revealed that nobody is safe in that community because the ‘boys’ could attack at any time. They could come in the morning, afternoon or night unhindered. Our reporter was even told that they could accost him and take away his camera and tape recorder and nobody would raise an eyebrow.
According to sources, police don’t mean anything to them, hence the community’s decision to hire the services of local vigilance group, the Odua Peoples’ Congress (OPC), to help in guarding the community.
The last straw that broke the camel’s back The gang has forced residents of the community to sleep with both eyes wide open. Residents were already getting used to their sad way of life until last year when the activities of the gangland boys became unbearable.
They approached OPC members to assist the community in getting rid of criminal activities from the town. But, when the gang noticed that OPC as an organisation had become a thorn in their flesh, they prepared and launched a deadly assault that left about three OPC members dead. The situation with the residents of Iba New Site is akin to that of the proverbial fowl and the tortoise.
When fire consumed the tortoise with its hardened shell, the fowl didn’t need any seer to know that it would be easy. Prey with its soft feather. If the gang could overpower and decimate the dreaded OPC, which the community regard as their last hope, having lost confidence in the police, where then lay their hope?
On May 6, the armed gang invaded the community around 2.00am with a mission to teach the members of OPC a bitter lesson they would not forget in a hurry. And they did. The OPC commander in charge of Iba New Site, Mr Sola Adeyemi and his men were brutally attacked losing two members.
The guns they had were far more sophisticated than what we had. They had AK 47 but we only had cutlasses, dane-guns and cane. It was around 4am or 5am that policemen came and took the wounded to hospital. One of my men was killed instantly. Days later another victim of the attack died. Just yesterday (May 25), my younger brother, Remi Adeyemi also died.
Sources said the OPC commander survived the attack because the bullets could not penetrate his body. “He had traditional protection. All the bullets raired on him did not penetrate his body but when he saw that they were about 30 in number and that they could catch him and strangle him since the shots could not kill him, he took to his heels,” the source said.
Lamenting the lackadaisical attitude of the police to distress calls, he said: “The boys rob both day and night without any fear. That was why we were invited to guard the community. The policemen are always very late in response. They said we should call them anytime there was any robbery incident but when you called them, they would not come until the robbers had finished robbing, maiming and killing. They would always tell you they didn’t know the street.”
“The Landlord Association in this area also said they would go to the police to ask for more support in terms of equipment so that we can face the criminals when they come. We cannot face them with bare hands. I don’t know where they get their guns from but their guns are highly sophisticated. It is not the kind of dane guns that we carry around here and there is no way we can confront them with our own kind of guns.”
On whether he suspects anybody in the community of giving information to the criminal elements, Adeyemi said: “I can’t say but I know that most of them are the children of landlords in this community.”
With all these happenings in the community, the Iba Neighbourhood Forum petitioned the Inspector-General of Police, the Lagos State governor, the Lagos State Commissioner for Police, Areas E and K Command of the Nigeria Police as well as the Divisional Police Officers in charge of Ojo and Isashi.
Culled- Sunnewsonline
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