Following a Persecondnews report on the return of road traffic robbers and laying siege to blackspots in Lagos metropolis, the State Government has ordered the demolition of illegal structures and shanties along Mile 2 on the Lagos-Badagry Expressway.
Officials of the State Environmental and Special Offences Taskforce had stormed the area with bulldozers and caterpillars to level the structures used as hideouts by the bandits to attack and rob motorists and pedestrians.
Persecondnews had reported some flashpoints and blacks spots in the metropolis which the robbers have seized including Orile-Iganmu, Mile Two, Trade Fair Complex on the Lagos-Badagry Expressway.
Last week at one of the black spots, a motorist, Mr Chukwudi Okwunze, a 51-year-old, who was driving home on Monday evening (Feb. 24) was shot in the traffic at Mile Two at about 9.00p.m.
But for Divine Providence, Okwunze would have been felled by the robbers’ bullets.
Okwunze, however, escaped death by hair’s breadth as the robbers’ bullet hit him on the left arm.
To carry out the massive demolition, the officials were accompanied by armed security personnel.
Apart from shanties, mechanic workshops, containarised kiosks and bus parks were demolished.
The Chairman of the taskforce, Mr Olayinka Egbeyemi, a chief superintendent of police, said there need to restore sanity and security in the area.
Leading the demolition squad, Egbeyemi, said the taskforce had also received distress calls and complaints from residents about the activities of bandits using those structures as hideouts.
“These removed illegal structures/shanties were identified for harbouring criminal elements who rob unsuspecting members of the public of their valuables.
“They also serve as outlets for the sales of illegal hard drugs like Tramadol, Codeine, Skunk, Weed including mixed liquor to miscreants.
“Lagos is the most populous state in Nigeria as well as its economic heartbeat and as such, the zero tolerance for all forms of crimes and criminality by the present administration will be sustained,” Egbeyemi said.
The Police Commissioner, Mr Hakeem Odumosu, had read riot act to bandits in the state on assumption of office in 2019.
