Lagos arrest 118 hoodlums living under the bridge

The arrested hoodlums.

No fewer than 118 suspected hoodlums have been arrested at the Oshodi area of Lagos in the early hours of Wednesday.

It was learnt that officials of the Lagos State Taskforce on Environmental and Special Offences (Enforcement) Unit, stormed Oshodi around 2am and arrested the hoodlums.

The hoodlums were accused of not having any known address and using the darkness to unleash mayhem in the area.

Those arrested comprised 106 males and 12 females. PUNCH Metro gathered that over 160 persons were initially arrested, but some of them were allowed to go after a screening at the task force office in Alausa.

Task force Chairman, Bayo Sulaiman, a Chief Superintendent of Police,  said the raid at Oshodi lasted for one hour.

He said the hoodlums were arrested in many dark spots in Oshodi, including under the bridge and abandoned property.

He said, “We decided to raid Oshodi due to series of complaints about upsurge in petty criminal activities in the area.

“We have been receiving text messages and people have been calling us that they are being harrassed by hoodlums at Oshodi. We realised that we had to go after them.”

Sulaiman said the unit had  raided Oshodi in the past, while their activities had abated. He added that after a  little break, the hoodlums came back to the area thinking that the government was no longer watching.

“We got information of where they were staying to smoke Indian Hemp and we swooped on them and arrested many,” he added.

Sulaiman said the underage children among them would be taken to a Lagos State correctional centre for rehabilitation.

He said the men and women among the hoodlums would be arraigned at the Lagos State Special Offences Court and punished according to the laws of the state.

He explained that one of the suspected women hoodlums was found to be pregnant and had been taken to a centre for women in her condition.

Sulaiman warned other hoodlums to stay away from Lagos, saying the government would not fold its arms and allow the state to be turned into a criminal den.