- dispossess them of valuables
From John Adams, Minna
As Nigerians prepare for the Christmas and the New Year celebrations, activities of hoodlums operating both day and in the midnight in Minna, the Niger state capital have sent fears into the residents as these hoodlums unleashed terror on their victims with impunity.
These hoodlums who hitherto operate in the day time and seem to have defied every security measures in the state have now extended their attacks on innocent citizens to midnight as they move from house to house to dispossess their victims of their valuables.
The hoodlums, popularly refers to as Yan daba (Area Boys) have operated in the broad daylight, and have continued to put the police on its toes with no day passes with form of attack or the other within the suburb of Minna.
No place in the state capital is saved due to the activities of these Area Boys who have now added criminal dimension to their initial street versus street fight as they have resulted to midnight attack on residence, dispossessing the people of their valuables.
Although the state police command, in a statement in Minna said it has deployed adequate personnel to ensure a hitch-free celebration, the hoodlums seem to be having a field day with the latest attack being the invasion of Maitumbi by-pass, a suburb with dangerous weapons where the resident of the area were hold hostage and dispossess of their valuables.
A resident of the affected area in a save-our-soul (SOS) appeal to both the police and the civil defense through a face book post titled; “Minna is not safe”, narrated how the hoodlums in their numbers, and armed with dangerous weapons, attacked the people in their homes and carted away their properties without resistance.
“Yesterday (Saturday) at about 3:00am Hoodlums (Area boys, yan daba) in large numbers invade into people’s houses at maitumbi bypass opposite three arm zones with Cutlass and knifes collecting valuable items.
“The hoodlums will knock at your door, if you refuse to open they’ll break the door beat you and collect valuable items and move to the next house, they invade into over 10 houses within an hour and nobody could come to confront them. The hoodlums were chanting shouting that if anybody has the guts let him come out of his house, but unfortunately nobody could come out because of safety of their lives”, he wrote.
The resident who added further that “Villages are not safe and cities not safe also” appealed to the security operatives to come to the rescue of the above area as the area is not safe for the residents.
Recalled that the activities of these hoodlums have led to a number of deaths of innocent citizens in recent times, most recent was the killing of a retired permanent secretary in the state who was trailed to his block industry and stabbed to death in a broad daylight.
Before the tragic killing of the permanent secretary, scores of innocent citizens have been killed by these criminally minded Area Boys in an attempt to dispossess the victims of their mobile phones.
Meanwhile the state police command has said that in other to ensure a peaceful Christmas and new-year celebrations, it has ordered for a massive deployment of Police personnel and Operational assets for a peaceful Yuletide period in the State.
The command in a statement by the public relation office SP, Wasiu Abiodun, said the commissioner of police has “directed Area Commanders, Tactical Commanders and DPOs to ensure adequate deployment of Police personnel and Operational assets to cover public places, most especially the places of worship, recreation centres, amusement parks, motor parks and highways within the State for the provision of adequate security before, during and after the season”.