For more than two years Ikorodu division has fed the media and the country with bad news almost on a daily basis.
Newspaper headlines and Radio/TV news bulletins, always carried large doses of horrible news emanating from this division. If it was not armed robbery, it was land grabbing attacks. If it was not cult killings, it was militants at Ishawo, Arepo and other creeks in the area bursting oil pipelines or killing.
Then came kidnappers, and lately the mother of them all, the Badoo Group who serially raped women and killed entire families ostensibly for bloody rituals.
Over two million residents of Ikorodu division became helpless. The Badoo group had held this part of the state to ransom. Everyone was afraid of them and our security men and women, and traditionalists apparently did nothing or at best they did tittle.
The layers of security agencies operating in Ikorodu division could not arrest the killings and the messengers of death as the rising crime profile and the huge insecurity in the area worsened.
From the army unit in Odogunyan to the Rapid Response Squad, down to the conventional police force, the DSS/SSS, the various intelligence groups working for the Army, the Navy, the Airforce and the police could not stop the killings.
Neither could the famous Onyabo, the National Security and Civil Defence Corps. When Governor Ambode injected more than 7000 newly trained young men and women of the rebranded Neighbourhood Safety Corps on March 7, 2017, with arrays of vehicles and equipment into the security pool, there was euphoria in the state. We were assured that these vibrant youths who will ride on bicycles, motorcycles, cars, horses and even asses in every nook and cranny of the state will be intelligence gatherers who will feed existing security agencies with vital information and complement the police in maintaining internal security of the state.
Billions of naira had been pumped into security of lives and properties by Governor Ambode’s administration including the purchase of helicopters (gunships) gun boats, armoured personnel carriers, patrol vans and other ordinances for combating crime. Yet the situation in Ikorodu continued to deteriorate.
Some people who had left main Lagos to settle in Ikorodu because of its serenity, its natural beauty and environment and its affordability in terms of rent and traffic are now thinking twice. Some who are fed up with the situation have relocated to other places they consider safer while the rest sleep like dogs with one eye closed and the other one open all the night and day.
At one time, it was the fear of armed robbers who came through the creeks and water fronts with explosives to blow up banks and financial houses. Later, it was fear of cultists who not only fought against fellow rival groups but terrorized residents at will.
No one will forget the 7/7, the 8/8, the 9/9 incidents/groups and operations which shut down sections of Ikorodu during the days of their anniversaries as they brandished weapons of terror and killed indiscriminately.
Land grabbers also known as Ajagungbales were busy in the fields frightening land owners and buyers as well as residents, chasing away landlords and house owners and killing or maiming anyone who challenged them as they acquired vast areas of land.
When it was the turn of militants who vandalized oil pipelines and bunkered fuel, they became a government within a national government. They were well armed and grabbed potions of the creeks and land in annexation. It took the combined might of the federal army, airforce, navy and police to dislodge the gunmen who also inflicted heavy causalities on our security men and civilian population.
When it was the turn of kidnappers to mount the stage of terrorism, it was loud too. The kidnap of two Lebanese working in a factory along Itoikin road, the kidnap of three girls in one secondary school in Ikorodu and lately the abduction of six students of Model College in Epe who at this press time had spent twenty seven (27) days in captivity are all pointers to the threats posed by criminals in this division.
With vast agric lands, virgin lands, creeks and hide outs, kidnappers are having a field day here. And now the Badoo group came on stage from Ibeshe visiting homes in different locations and brutally wiping off entire families. Like vampire bats they are said to be blood suckers who kill for ritual purposes.
With different criminal groups forming an octopus, it appeared the combined works of the Rapid Response Squad, the regular police and the popular Onyabo have not produced the desired results nor checked the state of insecurity in the land.
At the peak of the Badoo killings, different communities in Ikorodu division were provoked to anger as they rose up to challenge these serial killers. In various locations, landlords, house owners, tenants and all residents began to keep watch at night, burning tyres, blowing whistles and sirens, patrolling their areas and looking for weapons to defend themselves and their families.
They have resorted to self-deface with a vow to lynch any suspected Badoo member or any other criminal in their net. To this end some suspects had been burnt to death rightly or wrongly in Aga, Adamo etc.
At the pinnacle of people’s dejection, frustration and desperation they accused anyone accusable. Some residents pointed fingers at traditional rulers and chiefs, while some accused the security agencies of not willing to act. Yet some fingered Community Development Association leaders of inaction while a number of people alleged conspiracy of NEPA (PHCN) with the Badoo group because electricity was no longer supplied at night to all the areas thus providing a conducive situation for the killers to operate.
In the midst of this confusion and disgust in Ikorodu whereby Obas and their Chiefs began to organize rites and rituals to cleanse the land while Muslims and Christians prayed fervently for divine intervention, a game changer popped up on Friday, June 16, 2017 as nearly 500 cultists from all over Ikorodu division assembled at the palace of Oba Kabir Shotobi of Ikorodu to renounce their cult membership and their activities.
From three rival cult groups – Eiye, Bucaneers and Black Axe, the youngmen and women apologized to the public for their atrocities of the past. They claimed lack of jobs for their enrolment as cultists and pledged never to go back to their former lifestyle as they will embrace God and Ambode’s amnesty. They pleaded to be provided jobs, to be rehabilitated and to be forgiven by society and reintegrated into the communities.
Above all, they renounced killing themselves or killing anyone in the future on behalf of politicians and land grabbers who had been using them and vowed to join the good citizens and residents of Ikorodu division to fight and fish out the Badoo elements.
If indeed this renunciation is genuine and not stage managed by the cultists, then it is a game changer which will usher in a safer Ikorodu and pave the way to the restoration of peace, prosperity and confidence in this satellite zone which is the eastern gateway to Lagos State.