The victims
Hoodlums unleashed terror on residents of Ipaja, a Lagos suburb,
during a fracas at an event organised by a white garment church on
Sunday January 14, 2018.
According to The Nation, pandemonium broke out between 7pm and 9.30
pm, following a fight between some youths during a ceremony organised
by Fogofoluwa Cherubim and Seraphim Church on Gbadamosi Close, Pako area
of Baruwa, Ipaja.
Some eye-witnesses disclosed that the church was celebrating one of
their members who had just returned from trance, when a disagreement
between two youths over a girl led to a scuffle.
One of the youths at the event was said to have attacked a boy for dancing suggestively with his girlfriend.
The altercation led to a fight during which the girl’s boyfriend
was brutalised and he left the event only for him to return with over
100 hoodlums. They attacked everyone in sight as people scampered into
safety.
Scores of residents were brutalised and stabbed as the warring
youths freely used dangerous weapons including cutlass and broken
bottles to attack themselves and innocent bystanders.
The hoodlums allegedly moved from house to house, attacking residents and dispossessing them of their valuables.
It took the intervention of men of the Ipaja Police Division to
restore normalcy in the neighbourhood, while some of the perpetrators
were arrested.
The police were said to have rushed some of the victims to a nearby
private hospital where they are still receiving treatment for machete
cuts.
It was learnt that some of the perpetrators were arrested and
detained at the Ipaja Police Station, but they were later released on
bail following the intervention of some community leaders.
One of the victims, Sheriff Aremo, a bricklayer cum commercial
motorcycle operator popularly called okada, had barely returned home
from a visit to his pastor when the hoodlums swooped on him.
He was stabbed in the head and robbed of N40, 000 while the hoodlums searched his room for valuables.
Recalling his ordeal, Aremo said: ”I had just returned from the
residence of my pastor around 9.30 pm on my motorbike, when those who
were beaten up at the event returned with some hoodlums. They stormed my
residence and beat me to a pulp. They hacked me with machete on several
parts of my head. They also stole my handset and stole N40, 000 from my
room, money I saved up to start a small business later this year.
“The hoodlums also attacked other people especially those who
were taking fresh air outside their homes. We were later brought to the
hospital by policemen attached to Ipaja Police Division who arrived the
scene to disperse the mob and arrest some of the perpetrators.
“There was a young man like me who was also brutalised and
stabbed in the head. The wound on the man’s head was so deep that two
fingers could be slotted into it without being seen at all.”
The 25-year-old native of Abeokuta, Ogun State, claimed he had been
abandoned in the hospital as the police has refused to compel the
perpetrators to pay for his treatment at the hospital.
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