Suspected cultists have reportedly attacked Oreta community in the Ikorodu area of Lagos State, killing a 22-year-old resident, Abdulmalik Bakare, and two others.
Tunde Bakare, father of the deceased, said the incident occurred on Wednesday and that six suspects have been arrested.
The Divisional Police Officer in charge of the case has, however, assured the family that he would carry out a thorough investigation, Bakare told journalists Sunday.
“The DPO has promised that the case will be thoroughly investigated,” he said.
When our correspondent visited the community on Sunday, there was a fearful and uncertain atmosphere in the whole area and residents were still trying to recover from the violence.
The findings showed that the attack might have been connected to a previous confrontation between a trailer driver and a gang of suspected hoodlums on Gbogbo Road.
A resident who gave his name only as Fasasi said armed men on motorcycles stormed the community around 8 p.m. and began shooting indiscriminately.
Earlier in the day, some youths reportedly stopped a trailer carrying a container and demanded money from the driver, leading to an escalation in tensions, he said.
He said the driver claimed some people at a junction near where he was parked collected N350,000 as payment from his employers.
“It was in the afternoon. A driver of a trailer carrying a container was stopped at Gbogbo by some boys who wanted to collect money from him. The driver said they had already paid. The Chinese owners said they paid N350,000 to their bosses at the junction.
“But they said no. As they were dragging it at the junction, one of the area boys who climbed the trailer was caught under the tyre and died. “The police said they settled it and it was an accident, Fasasi said.
He said some of the youths regrouped after the incident and later launched a reprisal attack on the community.
They rounded up their gang members in the night and raided the community on bikes. They reached Oreta and began shooting.
They killed him when he was about to close his shop. They also shot dead a physically challenged child who was eating. They started smashing shops and glass doors. “A man who came to buy fish was also shot dead,” he said.
At the time of this report, the identities of the other victims had not been confirmed.
The attack sent panic through the community, forcing many people to flee and commercial activities to be abruptly disrupted, residents said.
Efforts to get an official comment from the Lagos State Police Command were unsuccessful.
At the time of filing this report, calls and text messages to the command’s spokesperson, SP Abimbola Adebisi, were not responded to.
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