FEAR OF IPOB GRIPS LAGOS

…Okada riders too
•Lagos holds security summit
•Police commissioner says strategies underway to neutralize IPOB’s activities

The police and other security services are strategizing to forestall violent attacks by
the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, and its security outfit, Eastern Security Network, ESN, on soft targets in Lagos.

The Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, Mr. Hakeem Odumosu disclosed the information at a security summit in Lagos, attended by the state Governor, Mr. Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, top government officials, traditional leaders, senior security officers, workers and trades unions and other stakeholders.

The Lagos summit was to address the security challenges amid insecurity in other parts of the country and the influx of foreigners into the state.

The commissioner of police said: “The threat of IPOB to attack soft targets in Lagos
is equally being put on the radar of the Command intelligence gathering and
other security services in the state. Strategies are being put in place to
neutralize their activities.

“The Command is using this medium to solicit for the support of all and sundry to be vigilant at all times and report any
suspicious person or movement to security agencies,” Odumosu said.

The confirmation by the Lagos police commissioner that the IPOB and ESN were planning to attack the state, as a way of furthering their clamour for secession, underlines the concern of many residents that if necessary measures are not taken, the violent attacks being experienced in other parts of the country might spill over into Lagos.

IPOB led by Nnamdi Kanu who is in exile has been a thorn in the flesh of the police and other security agencies in the South-east and South-south regions. Several gun attacks on police formations and checkpoints and the killings of operatives have been attributed to the IPOB and its militant wing, ESN, with the Federal Government proscribing the group and declaring it a terrorist group.

The group had threatened to extend its activities to other parts of Nigeria especially the South-west and Lagos in particular. The disclosure by the Lagos police commissioner is a pointer that the group’s threat is not being taken as a joke.

Not a few residents are also worried about the influx of commercial motorcyclists popularly called Okada and their disregard for traffic regulations and safety.

The police commissioner also noted criminals in the state are evolving different methods to perpetrate their acts, one of which is the “use of abandoned buildings as hideouts and in most cases, initiation camps, use of uncompleted buildings, dwelling houses and hotels to hibernate before and after the commission of crimes; use of abandoned vehicles to store their operational arms and their loots; building of shanties on abandoned open spaces and converting them into their sanctuaries to commit crimes.”

He said criminals also use vehicles with covered number plates, illegal fabrication and possession of arms, and use of tinted vehicles to commit crimes.

He urged the state government to immediately “take over abandoned/uncompleted buildings; confiscation of abandoned vehicles found to be used by
hoodlums to perpetrate their acts; immediate sealing up of any dwelling house, hotels, etc, being used by criminals as a hideout and/or launching pad,” among other measures.

He highlighted other security challenges facing the state to include robbery in traffic, which, he said, constitutes another security challenge facing police, cultism and the menace of Okada riders.

”Another major security challenge being faced by the Command is the use of
motorcycle as a means of transportation in the state. The government’s good intention of providing additional means of land
transportation and creating jobs for the teeming unemployed youths, has
been negated by the atrocities being perpetrated by the Okada operators in
the state. These include the use of Okada as a veritable tool to commit crime
and get away with it by hoodlums; disrespect to traffic rules and regulations;
the Okada operators becoming nuisance and reckless on our roads,
resulting in avoidable accidents with attendant consequences on human
life,” Odumosu said.



He added: “The menace of Okada operators does not end with avoidable accidents. Crime reports from the field have shown that a greater percentage of crimes, ranging from armed robbery, cultism, kidnapping,
murder, burglary and stealing, traffic robbery to carjacking and cash
snatching from bank customers, who go to the banks to make transactions,
are attributable to armed hoodlums who operate on Okada. So also movement of arms. It has also been established that Okadas are being illegally used as a veritable means of conveying hard drugs from one point to another.”

As a way of curbing activities of Okada riders, the CP urged the state government to
“immediately review the current guidelines guiding the operation of Okada as
a means of commercial transportation in the state and take decisive legal
and administrative steps and policies that will curb their traffic, criminal and
other nefarious activities.

”The commitment of all the security agencies in enforcing any policy thrust of
the state on this issue is hereby pledged,” Odumosu stated.

Stakeholders at the summit emphasised that the Okada riders’ menace has become quite alarming and a serious security threat to citizens especially after the #EndSARS crisis in October 2020.


It was agreed that the state government should take over abandoned and uncompleted buildings in the state immediately as well as take control of abandoned vehicles in the nooks and crannies of the state.

Other measures agreed on include the sealing off and takeover of houses, hotels and events centres where hoodlums are found to hibernate or where arms are stored.


Also, the participants agreed on the need to deploy appropriate cutting edge technologies such as streetlights, CCTV, drones to fight crime and strengthen security in an emerging Smart City such as Lagos.