been arrested at the Oshodi area of Lagos in
the early hours of Wednesday.
It was learnt that officials of the Lagos State
Taskforce on Environmental and Special
Offences (Enforcement) Unit, stormed Oshodi
around 2am and arrested the hoodlums.
The hoodlums were accused of not having any
known address and using the darkness to
unleash mayhem in the area.
Those arrested comprised 106 males and 12
females. PUNCH Metro gathered that over 160
persons were initially arrested, but some of
them were allowed to go after a screening at
the task force office in Alausa.
Task force Chairman, Bayo Sulaiman, a Chief
Superintendent of Police, said the raid at
Oshodi lasted for one hour.
He said the hoodlums were arrested in many
dark spots in Oshodi, including under the
bridge and abandoned property.
He said, "We decided to raid Oshodi due to
series of complaints about upsurge in petty
criminal activities in the area.
"We have been receiving text messages and
people have been calling us that they are
being harrassed by hoodlums at Oshodi. We
realised that we had to go after them."
Sulaiman said the unit had raided Oshodi in
the past, while their activities had abated. He
added that after a little break, the hoodlums
came back to the area thinking that the
government was no longer watching.
"We got information of where they were
staying to smoke Indian Hemp and we
swooped on them and arrested many," he
added.
Sulaiman said the underage children among
them would be taken to a Lagos State
correctional centre for rehabilitation.
He said the men and women among the
hoodlums would be arraigned at the Lagos
State Special Offences Court and punished
according to the laws of the state.
He explained that one of the suspected
women hoodlums was found to be pregnant
and had been taken to a centre for women in
her condition.
Sulaiman warned other hoodlums to stay away
from Lagos, saying the government would not
fold its arms and allow the state to be turned
into a criminal den.
No comments:
Post a Comment