LAGOS: Sanwo-Olu asked to proscribe NURTW over thugs-afflicted bloody clashes on Island

*Lagos political leadership believes pampering thugs way to peace – Investigation

*Stop backing thugs to enable police do their job to save lives, properties in Lagos – Resident

“Sad, our state leaders do claim that they do not control the police reason they are unable to fight insecurity at their respective states. How can you complain that Federal Government control of police is reason you cannot stop insecurity caused by the thugs you build and empower with weapons and freedom to breach the peace with often clear hindrance of security agents from effectively taming their excesses by arrest and prosecution? This has to stop.”

The Lagos State chapter of the Accord Party has called on Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to proscribe the National Union of Road Transport Workers following repeated violence by its members.

Members of the union on Thursday on Lagos Island attacked one another, leaving many, including traders and commuters, injured.

The  fracas, which extended to Friday, left some people dead and paralysed business activities in the area.

The Publicity Secretary of the party, Dele Oladeji, reacting to the development in a statement on Saturday, called on Sanwo-Olu to tame the members of the NURTW by proscribing the union with immediate effect.

Oladeji said: “Again, the members of the NURTW were enmeshed in a deadly fight on Lagos Island which was reported to have resulted in the untimely death of some four youths.

“This deadly clash created a security scare, in which innocent and hardworking  residents of Lagos  had to scamper into shops, crevices, under table and inside gutters for dear lives.

“Many rushed into shops and were locked in with the shop owners, just to stay away from stray bullets or being caught up in the fracas.

“Traders were forced to shutdown their businesses, which led to the  loss of transactions running into  billions of naira.

“We advise the Lagos State governor to, with immediate effect, proscribe the NURTW for a peaceful and safe Lagos city.”

The spokesman said that the recent violence was one too many among the members of the NURTW  in Lagos State.

Oladeji said though members of the union were always in the habit of killing themselves during  such fracas, their action had always defied the security set up in Lagos State and created a state of insecurity among residents.

He said: “Ask an average resident of Lagos, and they will tell you they live and commute in utter fright of these ‘union boys’ daily on the streets and roads.

“Governor Sanwo-Olu should rise up in service to residents of the state and proscribed these lawless group for a safer Lagos State.”

He said that the NURTW factions were known to frequently engage in free-for-all over power tussles at different locations and parks.

In the meantime, residents of Lagos State, who cried out that hoodlums have now taken over major areas in the state, are asking how political leadership of the “so called Centre of Excellence” continue to be deceived believing that by pampering hoodlums they can achieve peace.

One of them said to The DEFENDER that, “When General Mohamed Buba Marwa was Governor of Lagos, he did not pamper hoodlums and there was peace. What he did was pick anyone in sight at every motorpark and bus stop and take him to a centre where they got rehabilitated and engaged for more productive activities like farming.

“Immediately civillians came to power, thugs have dominated governance of Lagos to the extent that they make policing ineffective to the despite huge investments in security and it means nothing to the political class, who believe that allowing hoodlums do what they do is way to stop armed robbery.

“First and foremost, much as they forcefully collect money from every petty trader, transporters, they are still the same people that carry guns in the night and go from house to house rob people.

“Worst is that, every street on the mainland now, hoodlums reign like kings to the helplessness of innocent citizens resident in the state. From Alagbado to Agege and Ikeja to Obalende and Idumota, then Ojota to Ikorodu, the insecurity in those areas, even in central Ajah, now, makes Boko Haram experience a child play,” he lamented.

Major General Abdullahi  Adekunle Martins (Rtd), former Commander, corps of Ordnance Nigerian Army, had last year called on the Federal Government to take the economy of Lagos State to its heart as leaving such economy upon which depended other economies will continue to make life difficult for Nigerians.

According to the retired Army General, no amount of minimum wage increment government can do, so long hoodlums continue to determine what happens in the transpiration sector and the market in Lagos, people will continue to cry that life is hard in Nigeria.

In the meantime, a call has gone to Governor Sanwo-Olu and other political leaders in Lagos State to stop backing hoodlums so the police can do their job effectively and security of lives and safety of properties in the state will be ensured.

“Sad, our state leaders do claim that they do not control the police reason they are unable to fight insecurity at their respective states. How can you complain that Federal Government control of police is reason you cannot stop insecurity caused by the thugs you build and empower with weapons and freedom to breach the peace with often clear hindrance of security agents from effectively taming their excesses by arrest and prosecution? This has to stop.

“In Lagos, the true of the situation is that, if an agbero breaks the windscreen of a transporter’s bus and he goes to report him at the police station, believe me, what you have is that, the police will rather arrest the victim while letting the agbero to go free. This is the bottomline of the unspoken security crisis in Lagos that Federal Government and the ruling party at the Federal level must come to look into,” he said.