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Police Arrest 20 Over Ijora
Riot By Victor Ebimomi and
Femi Ogbonnikan,
Lagos Police have arrested about 20
people in connection with a bloody riot that rocked Badia, Ijora, in
Apapa-Iganmu Development Council on Monday in which about 20 houses were
razed. The Lagos State Police Command
spokesman, Olubode Ojajuni, said those arrested have been transferred to
the State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti while police are still
investigating the incident. He promised that the culprits
would be made to face the law once investigations are completed. He said
peace has returned to the area but there is still security alert to
forestall further breakdown of law and order. Investigations, however,
revealed that the whole area is still enveloped by palpable fear following
rumour of a reprisal attack by the warring factions. Ijora was on fire on Monday as
miscreants engaged in a free-for-all fight over how to share money
collected from an hotelier before allowing him to begin
operation. The matter led to the burning
of houses and destruction of property before the intervention of police
who came to restore peace. The destruction, according to
some of the residents, would have been more if not for the quick response
of the policemen. Those rendered homeless as a
result of the crisis lamented that they were made to suffer unnecessarily
for something they knew nothing about. “Right now, I do not have
anything left, there is nothing left in my house all my property have been
burnt,” one of the victims said. But at a peace meeting between
the Area ‘B’ Commander, Apapa, Mr Olufemi Oyeleye, Assistant Commissioner
of Police, and community leaders from both sides, it was alleged that one
person was shot dead, while three others, including a Police Inspector
from Orile-Iganmu Division sustained gunshot wounds during the
mayhem. At the meeting attended by 25
people, one of the witnesses, Mr Obadiah Kayode, discribed how some boys
from Sari-Iganmu crossed over to Badia to collect money from someone who
wanted to open a hotel. |
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