The residents were said to have resisted the arrest of some youths in the area.
The residents were said to have resisted the arrest of some youths in the area.
Some armed police officers from the command who were in mufti had earlier driven a yellow commercial bus to a shop in the area and arrested the youths for playing the ludo game.
An investigative journalist with Nigerian online newspaper, The Cable, Taiwo Adebulu, revealed this in an article titled ‘Questions Lagos police command needs to answer on boys remanded for playing ludo.’
According to Adebulu, the sad incident happened on February 29, when he took his faulty car to the mechanic's workshop but policemen came in their numbers to raid some of the people playing a ludo in the area.
The cops attempted to arrest the youths in their neighbourhood for claiming that they were gambling, but they resisted the arrest. They insisted that they were not guilty of any offence.
He said the police officers called for reinforcement and soon, about 15 more cops came in a yellow commercial bus and started harassing people with a cutlass.
Adebulu said the policemen came from Alagbado area under the Ifako-Ijaiye local government area. He expressed shock and dissatisfaction that the Lagos Police Command spokesman, SP Benjamin Hundeyin did not investigate the matter before publishing a statement about the incident.
The journalist faulted Hundeyin for deceiving the public with a press statement that residents of the Aboru area were arrested for gambling, as he claimed he was in their midst and nothing of such happened.
“On February 29, just a few days ago, my car developed the same problem that the mechanic working with the police had billed me a fortune for. I left home very early to visit a mechanic workshop that a friend had highly recommended to me in Aboru area of Alimosho LGA,” Adebulu stated.
“I got there at exactly 8 am and waited for the mechanics to come. First come, first served. I had come a long way to get my car fixed and return to work, but I never knew it was going to be a long day.
“A few minutes after 11 am, some police officers in mufti drove a yellow commercial bus towards the workshop, and began to chase some young boys. The whole neighborhood went into a frenzy. They succeeded in catching about three of them.
“The police alleged they were playing ludo and gambling. A few hours to that incident, one of the boys had approached me with the ludo, asking if I could play with him to keep myself busy while my car was undergoing cosmetic surgery. But the mechanic warned me not to attempt it because he was a pro. I dodged him with the excuse that I was actually doing some official work on my computer tab.
“More residents trooped to the scene, asking the officers why they wanted to take the boys away. The officers said they were gambling, the boys said they were only playing ludo. The resident insisted that the boys couldn't go with the officers because they were not identifiable in mufti and they came in yellow commercial buses.
“At this moment, I approached one of the officers and asked him which station they came from. He said they were from Area P in Alagbado. I told him the boys were playing ludo, according to what I had seen, and that's not a criminal offence, but an indoor game as the residents rightly protested.
“But he insisted they were gambling. This was all captured on video. Right in my presence, the officer called the Area P office and told his colleagues that they were under attack. Everyone thought it was a joke, so they waited. One mistake they ended up regretting.
“In a few minutes, about 15 police officers invaded the neighborhood in three yellow commercial buses. They went haywire. One held a cutlass and began to chase residents. He hit a young lady who was making a video on her buttocks with the cutlass.
“One broke an empty bottle of beer on the head of the mechanic working on my vehicle. The second mechanic was beaten to a pulp and the back of his head bled. While most of the residents ran for their lives, some were not that lucky.
“Two officers grabbed my trousers and dragged me towards the yellow bus where they had kept the residents they randomly picked. They said I must go with them too. I told them I was a journalist and was there to repair my car. That fell on deaf ears.
“One of the officers I had spoken with earlier identified me and told his colleagues that I was indeed a journalist. I confirmed that and they let me go. Eight residents were carted away and detained by the police.
“On Friday morning, when I returned to the neighborhood for updates, four of the residents had been released after they allegedly parted with N80,000. The rest, including the mechanic, were taken to a magistrate court in Ejigbo. They were remanded in Kirikiri.
“Now, what I found really interesting was the statement issued by Hundeyin on the matter. He said the boys were arrested for "gambling, unlawful assembly and possession of hard drugs".
“Ludicrous! I understand that Hundeyin is into public relations, but such PR stunt was an attempt to rewrite the narrative to justify an illegal raid and assault on the residents. The fact that I witnessed the incident of that day and reported it doesn't change what I have seen. As a journalist and investigative editor, I'll speak the truth and uphold it.
“I respect Hundeyin as a young professional, but that press release was laced with half-truth. After the police PPRO sent me the press statement, I replied him that he had been misled. The Area P police officers had fed him with fat lies. There are some questions the command needs to answer before defending its officers who went berserk on harmless citizens.”
Hundeyin had claimed that the eight people arrested in the area were found with illegal substances, and that they assaulted police officers.
He said, “Following repeated complaints from residents of Harmony Estate, Aboru, Lagos about the activities of young men in the habit of converging around the entrance of the estate at morning and night gambling, selling/smoking hard drugs, harassing/hindering free movement of residents and extorting passers-by, operatives of the Command drawn from Area P, Alagbado carried out a thorough surveillance of the area and subsequently stormed the area at about 0800 hours on Thursday, February 29, 2024, to arrest the miscreants.
“A total of eight suspects were arrested with substances, suspected to be hard drugs, resulting in the blockage of road by other miscreants who demanded the release of their cohorts before the Police could leave the vicinity.
“The miscreants equally assaulted the officers, who, however, called for and received reinforcement, enabling them to successfully move the suspects and exhibits to the station.
“Further investigations at the station proved that four of the eight arrested were not culpable. They were, therefore, freed while the remaining four, Afolabi Joshua ‘m’ aged 24, Isaiah Omogbolahan ‘m’ aged 25, Oluwadamilare Kayode ‘m’ aged 38 and Friday Anamaliu ‘m’ aged 40, were arraigned on March 1, 2024 at Ejigbo Magistrate Court and remanded by the court in prison custody till March 25, 2024.
“News making the rounds that the suspects were arrested for playing Ludo game are entirely false and only brought up by some of the miscreants, who managed to escape, in a bid to change the narrative and divert attention from the real issues.
“The Lagos State Police Command will not succumb to social media blackmail, and would continue to uphold its mandate to maintain law and order, and protect the lives and property of Lagosians.”