Armed robbers chase policemen with cutlass to Area Command

Armed robbers invade Unity Estate

Chase SARS to Area ‘M’ Command as the policemen run

The last Police van left behind after the policemen fled from the robbers. The gunmen deflated the four tyres with gunshots. Also see the bullet holes on the door.

It was a dark hour of nightmare for the residents of Unity Estate, Zone 2, on early morning of Saturday, September 22, when gunmen invaded the Estate for the second time in about two weeks apart.

     While the first invasion resulted in death casualty of Chief Mathias Agbon-Ifon, which made the residents to believe it was assassination mission, going by the mode of attack, the residents believed the recent invasion was an armed robbery operation intended on the home of of one Alhaji Taofeek Shodiya (a.k.a Tasho).

The electric fence cable & the CCTV camera the gunmen first destroyed after taking position.

    According to the eye-witnesses accounts of the whole “award winning live movie” (as the two Nollywood stars residents in the Estate described it to be), the police team of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) that responded to the distress call ran away, abandoning their Oke-Odo Police Divison pick-up van in the face of superior fire power of the armed robbers.

    Giving accounts of how the gunmen beat the water-tight security barrier of the Estate, the head of Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) vigilante security guards for the Estate simply identified as Taye said after the armed robbers first deceptively horn as a night-crawler residents of the Estate without success, they opened fire on the Iron Gate but less furiously to much they opened to air; “one of the gunmen scaled the high fence to break the gate lock from behind”.

    Asked why the security did not open fire on this first man, another member of the security guard reminded The Colloquium Tabloid correspondent that besides they were not authorised to carry gun, safety tips in security job of night guard dictated that they should first come to full breast of the strength of the gunmen.

    This guard whose name was given as Biola explained further in Yoruba language what he saw from a vantage dark corner that camouflaged him from easy detection by the armed robbers.

The window and burglary of the security post the gunmen destroyed to eventually gain entry into the compound

Some of the residents of the Estate gathered to discuss the incidents

people trooping into the Estate to witness the after robbery ruins

    “After breaking the padlock of the gate, they put forward a barely naked man as a shield. We were to find out later that this man was also a victim of the robbers whose house was earlier raided in Isolo, jerking his two cars – a prado Jeep and a Toyota Camry; bundled him into the booth of the Camry to lock him up there and drove him down to this place (the Estate).

    “You see what I mean that it was only good for us to be cautious at shooting gun. If we had fired immediately as people have been asking, that is how we would have killed an innocent father of some children”, the guard explained.

    Accounts of the actual scene of the robbery in the Alhaji Taofik’s house, as given by an acquaintance of the residence who pleaded to anonymity confirmed that the robbers shot a female resident of the house they held hostage in the leg when she could not provide the key to the inner room of Alhaji.

The charred window of the penthouse of the building also destroyed with gun shots while trying to gain entry into the compound earlier. Also see all the small pictures as below for the ruins of sporadic gunshots by the gunmen. 

    Telling his experience, the male resident who was obviously still in shock described the whole incidents as “a manifestation of Allah’s mercy on the entire households” for the gang’s leader to rescind the decision to kill people for taking them through the ordeal of having to force their way into the house.

    “I heard the leader specifically giving instruction that they should not kill anybody. Even when they first came in, one of Alhaji’s sons innocently woke up from sleep and walked into the already furious gang. The leader just said said: ‘pele, o ti sun? pele, lo sun pada’; meaning sorry, you’ve slept? Sorry, go back to sleep”.

    The gunmen were said to gain entry into the house through the small window of the security post. Having taken positions and occupied the street, they made straight for their target house; cut off electric bar of the fence; fired gun shots to destroy the CCTV camera; then tried several shots on the iron gate, which repelled the bullets as all other doors to the rooms in the house did.

    The gunmen eventually gained entry into the inner house of the compound through a door not locked by a member of the house. It was the woman they met in that part of the house that was eventually held hostage to lead them to Alhaji’s room, according to full story of the incidents. She was eventually shot in the leg.

    The dare-devil robbers operated undisturbed with impunity; parading all the adjoining streets to the house of their victim with consistent gun shots into the air.

    The Police responded swiftly to the distress call but could not stop the robbers who were said to parade high caliber machineguns with lots of expendable rounds of ammunitions. They eventually fled the scene when the gunmen turned the heat on them.

Mr. Abiola standing by his car as the crowd got lighter

    According to those who claimed to watch the scene from the safe corner of their floor of one or two stories building, they said about four Police patrol vans arrived at the scene of the robbery in time worth to commend the police for. They however condemned the police for blaring siren on coming; a situation they believed gave the police away easily to the alerts of the gunmen.

Sympathisers besieged Abiola to hear his tail. See right pix too

    According to the collaborative accounts of the two Nollywood actors resident in the Estate, the policemen stationed their vehicles with the beam lights facing the direction of the operations. But the robbers dared them with a row of about five gun-wielding members of the gang advancing towards the policemen, shooting indiscriminately on the go.

    Seeing the superior firepower of the robbers’ arsenal, the policemen fled; leaving behind one of their vehicles.The gunmen did not relent at pursuing them. They demobilised the Patrol van left behind by deflating the four tyres with gun shots.

Mr. Abiola's Camry in the booth of which he was locked and carried about

 

    Sympathisers besieged Mr. Bola, the said victim of the armed robbers taken with them from Isolo on arrival back to the scene, having changed from wrapper to a brown polo on a pair of geans trouses. He had earlier laid flat in the drainage of the Estate near his car after getting a reprieve of less attention from the gunmen while on full operation of the Estate target.

    He left for the Idimu Police Station immediately after the robbers left him in the near-naked state. He returned back to the Estate in the morning with Policemen to get his snatched Camry car to the Station. He sustained a head injury from a hit of the gun booth by the gang. He also had a left blushed eye to indicate the brutal assaults he received from the gunmen.

The blushed right eye Mr. Abiola sustained from the robbery incidents 

    Not more than two weeks ago, a gang of gunmen also visited Agbon-Ifon Street, just off the street they visited on Saturday. The two houses are so close with less than 20 meters apart.

    In that incident, they killed the Regional Head of the Ogboni Confraternity Worldwide, Captain Mathias Agbon-Ifon in the operation that looked much like assassination; as they killed their target without taking anything from the house.       

    

The head injury Mr. Abiola sustained while caught in the ferocious fangs of the gunmen. The armed robbers invaded his home in Isolo. hey jerked his two cars; bundled him into the booth of his smaller car and carried him along to the scene of Unity Estate robbery.