A bloody era of mass killings is quietly unfolding in the recesses of Lagos State, Nigeria’s economic hub. Serial killers are methodically wiping out entire families in Ikorodu, a notorious nest of armed robbers, militants, ritual killers and kidnappers. A family of five – save a Senior Secondary School pupil – comprising the father, pregnant mother and two children were victims late in May when they were sadistically murdered in their Erunwen home. On Saturday, the invaders smashed the head of a cleric, Wale Solomon, with a mortar at his residence in the First Gate area while he was asleep. He is currently battling for his life. This grim reign of terror is terrifying. Lagos State, the police and the intelligence agencies should swiftly get to its root.
Residents strongly believe that a secret cult – Badoo – is behind the atrocities. According to media reports, the horrible acts conform to a prototype. The murderers do not carry weapons. When they breach the security of a house, they smash the heads of the occupants with pestle, mortar or any object they could find, wiping their brains and blood with handkerchiefs. They calmly walk away without raising suspicion since they are not armed. This barbarism is an open sore whose trauma will last a lifetime for the concerned families.
The attack on the family of five was bloodcurdling. Although a member of the family escaped after being left for the dead, her pregnant mother had her stomach ripped open and the foetus taken away. This is an uncharted territory for the security agencies, but it is not an excuse for the police not to outfox these criminals. Strikingly, the locals fear the police allow the sore to fester because they have not been meticulously prosecuting the members of the gang in their custody, who are freed controversially to perpetrate more horror.
Apart from butchering innocent families, it is common for the felons to also rape women. They stepped up their evil campaign in April when they massacred a family of three in Ibeshe. Lucky Ebhodaghe, the only child of the family, who was sitting the School Certificate Examinations, was hacked to death along with his parents. Their neighbours were not aware of the incident until a teacher from Lucky’s school went to his house, only to discover that his absence from the examination hall was caused by his death.
The macabre spree continued in May with the murder of a family of four. Taofik and Simiat Agbaje, along with their two children aged eight and 10, were massacred in their Imota home. Two other children of the family, one of them aged one, escaped with serious injuries. In June 2016, the gang raped and killed a Ghanaian, and inflicted injuries on her eight-month-old baby, while the husband was away.
The following month, the assailants raped and blinded a 60-year-old woman named Francisca and brutalised her 10-year-old daughter for raising the alarm. Their assault is unremitting. In October 2016, they struck at Ibeshe again, stabbing a 30-year-old pregnant woman, her husband and their children aged five and six to death. In December 2016, it was another grisly stuff as the attackers murdered two siblings – Azeezat and Abeeb Oriade. Last March, three siblings aged between four and nine lost their lives to the marauders.
According to an affected lady, Abiodun Kokoroaiye, the gang snuffed the life out of her mother, son and two siblings in the Agbowa area last March while they were in church. They also allegedly pummelled a man and his two sons to death in a house near the church. In all of this, the police have responded lethargically. This is annoying.
It is incomprehensible that, with the bold strides Lagos has made to stem criminality since it launched its security trust fund in 2007, these bandits are still running riot. They should be stopped, no matter what it takes. As it is the case in other climes, the state should deploy its might against them.
Serial killing is not restricted to Lagos alone. It happens in other countries; the difference is in the impetus to combat it. Last weekend, the police rescued Kala Brown, 30, from her two-month ordeal in South Carolina, the United States. Her abductor, Todd Kohlhepp, who imprisoned and raped her repeatedly, had earlier slaughtered Brown’s boyfriend, Charlie Karver. The authorities traced him by tracking the cell-phones of his victims, including a couple, to his area of operation.
British tabloid, Sunday Mirror, discovered that 35 serial killers, including Fred and Rose West, who plotted the murder of 10 women, and Dennis Nilsen, who lured 16 men to his flat and murdered them, have been jailed for life between 1966 and 2008.
The police in Lagos are well equipped; so they have to stop giving excuses. Technology should come in handy for our security agencies in this breach. This criminality should attract the toughest punishment available in the books. It is time they mapped out strategies to nip planned atrocities in the bud. They should make intelligence, hi-tech equipment and collaboration with the community count. To garner information, they need to cultivate the people’s confidence because of the belief that information shared with the police could be used against them when criminals escape prosecution.
Families and businesses are relocating from Ikorodu because of insecurity. All eyes are, therefore, on Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to provide visionary leadership at a time like this. His idea of transforming Lagos to a smart city is endangered if a gang of marauders habitually succeed in holding the state to ransom via gruesome killings. He should mobilise all resources at his disposal to put a stop to this barbarism going on in Ikorodu if that area is part of the state – the “Centre of Excellence.”
