How I was stabbed on Sallah eve, by teacher

A teacher, Abubakar Aliyu has relived his ordeal in the hands of hoodlums in Mushin.

According to him, the hoodlums, who have been terrorising the Alafia, Daniel, Olorunsola, Bamgboye, Ilasamaja road areas of Mushin, usually go about in large number.

According to him, the incident happened on the eve of Sallah.

Aliyu said one boy entered a saloon and snatched his phone.

As he chased him out of the saloon shouting “thief!! thief!!,” the boy’s colleagues around the place descended on Aliyu and one of them stabbed him on the neck.

He said a nurse in the vicinity assisted him to control the bleeding before he was rushed to a hospital.

With his plastered neck and still writhing in pains, Aliyu described the incident as unfortunate.

He said: “It was in the night around 10pm and I was inside a barbing saloon when one boy just entered and snatched my phone and ran out. I ran after him and shouted: “Thief! Thief!! Thief!!!” his colleagues descended on me. One of them just stabbed me with a knife and all of them fled. Sadly and ironically, they were the ones that robbed me and they were going and shouting: “Thief, thief! thief!!.” They were really many. They were more than 20. It was one woman that treated me that night. She didn’t collect money from me. After that day, one of the doctors in our area assisted me to hospital for further treatment.

“From that day I’ve been feeling severe pain in my body. Those guys are notorious. They’ve killed people on this street. They have also stabbed people on several occasions.”

Aliyu called on government to nab all these area boys “because they are robbing us of our valuables everyday and threatening our peace. These guys are just the same thing as armed robbers.”

Another resident Tunde Olawale the whole area is under Ayetoro Community Development Area (CDA).

According to Olawale, the area is used to be peaceful “but suddenly, we just began to see some boys whom we cannot trace their source. We could not ascertain their parents not their houses in our streets. We later discovered that some of their parents have house here while majority of them we can’t really identify where they are from.”
Olawale said the boys between ages 14 and 18 started to commit all forms of atrocities in the area.

“You can’t walk on the street by 9pm . Last Sunday, they came out with machetes and bottles and started tormenting troubles and once they started like that, whoever they come across, they dispossess them of all their valuables.”

“Our mind is no longer at rest. The guys have no job other than betting,” Segun Ayinde told The Nation on phone.

He said: “As residents, we cannot talk. We don’t know what to do. At times, they can be numbering about 50 or 100, very young around ages of 14-16 years. In fact, the oldest of them will just be around 18 and those ones are very few. They keep disturbing the peace in our area.

“On the eve of Sallah, they still caused mayhem on this street. Everybody had to quickly closed shops and ran for their lives. They stabbed some people and took away their phones and other valuables. That’s how we’ve been battling with their menace. Everybody is just confused. But, we mobilised a few of us and went to Area D Police State, the officers there asked us to go to Olosan Police Station. Men from Olosan Police station came to inspect the area. In fact, they raided our street one night and arrested some of these boys but the boys returned to the area to continue tormenting us.”
A community leader, Wahab Adekunle said the police have failed the community.

He called on the Commissioner of Police (CP) Zubairu Muazu to call his men to order.

“How could police arrest some hoodlums in the day only for those thugs to return at night, threatening us again? We are even afraid of reporting them to police because we do not trust them that they will reveal our identities to the boys,” he said.

Adekunle appealed to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to assist clear the area of the hoodlums.

“What we the government to do is to help us find lasting peace to this issue in our community. We want the government to use all its powers and engage all the hierarchies in the security agencies to help us curtail these boys and their atrocities. We found out that these boys have some people backing them. We want the Governor to help to us do something very fast on it,” he said.