For two years, residents of Ikorodu community and the environs in Lagos State lived at the mercy of criminal gangs who persistently launched attacks on them, owing to the poor security architecture in the towns.
The troubled communities are today, however, basking in relative peace as the state government and the Lagos police command suddenly woke up from their slumber and went after the criminals, many of who are now cooling their heels in prison.
Indeed, it was cases of kidnapping, oil bunkering and robberies perpetrated by suspected militants from Niger/Delta that first assumed worrisome levels in Ikorodu and neighbouring communities.
The heavily armed suspected militants operated somehow unhindered for many months on the Lagos-Ogun waterway and in the surrounding communities.
The situation assumed a more frightening dimension when the militants killed some security operatives detailed to the area to curtail the gunmen’s excesses.
In 2015 alone, nine operatives of the Department of State Services were shot dead by vandals at Konu, a border between Arepo in Ogun State and Ikorodu, Lagos State. This was even as scores of persons were declared missing as a result of the attack on the area.
In April 2017, gunmen suspected to be displaced militants stormed the Ishawo area of Ikorodu to abduct some residents of an estate.
The militants met with stiff resistance from members of the Operation Awatse team, who held them to a heavy gun battle. In the encounter, five policemen and two soldiers were recorded to have been killed by the militants.
As the militants menace was receding, the activities of a cult group, popularly known as Badoo, came into the limelight. The cult gang was notorious for killing whole families by smashing their heads with a stone and wiping their blood with a white handkerchief, which they took away, allegedly for money rituals.
Between 2016 and June 2017, no fewer than 30 residents of Ikorodu were believed to have been killed by members of the Badoo group. The deaths were recorded from 15 different attacks by the gang between June 5, 2016, and June 27, 2017. No fewer than 14 persons were also injured in the attacks.
The Badoo gang was first heard of on June 5, 2016 when suspected members of the group struck at the Oke Ota community in Ibeshe, raping and killing a 27-year-old Ghanaian, Obinna.
Efforts on many occasions to tame the cult-gang proved abortive until a recent breakthrough that led to the arrest of a suspected herbalist and leader of the gang.
A few weeks after Imohinmi Edgal assumed office as Lagos State Commissioner of Police in August 2017, he underlined his resolve to rein in the crime gangs in Lagos State, especially in Ikorodu, with the arrest of 51-year-old popular independent oil marketer, Alhaji Alaka Abayomi Kamal, owner of Alaka Petroleum located in Ikorodu allegedly in connection with various Badoo cult killings.
Following the arrest of some suspects over Badoo killings, Edgal and a police team also raided in January this year another shrine at Ayegbami quarters, Imosan in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, where suspected Badoo cult members were said to be taking their oath before going on operations. The chief herbalist of the shrine, one Fatai Adebayo, was arrested.
Edgal, who led the operation, said the kingpin of the notorious cult group was arrested while trying to escape through the waterways.
The Lagos police chief recently asserted that the crime rate in Lagos had reduced considerably, while giving kudos to the state government for what it called its support. The reduction, he said, has given a new lease of life to residents of Ikorodu and its environs.
At the inaugural edition of the Lagos State Security Summit held in Lagos two weeks ago, Edgal traced the “breakthrough” so far recorded in the state to the “massive assistance extended to security forces by the state government through consistent donations and funding of security equipment.”
The Police Commissioner said an overview of the crime statistics in the state between 2014 and now revealed that a total of 1315 armed robbery attacks, 359 cult-related cases and 392 kidnapping cases were recorded, with several arrests made and many prosecutions ongoing.
He hinged the success on community policing and security partnership strategies he said he put in place upon assumption of office as CP, saying all militant groups hitherto operating in the state had been incapacitated from carrying out attacks.
“When I became Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, in September last year, I introduced my own policing plan powered by the strategy and philosophy of community policing and community safety partnership.
“Based on the partnership with the community and other security outfits within our communities, we have been able to bring the activities of the Badoo cult group to an end and also discovered suspected notorious shrines in Ikorodu and environs used for suspected ritual killings and other form of crimes. These shrines have all been demolished,” Edgal said.
