For five young men who attended a friend’s wedding party at Chapters Hotel, Oko-Oba, Agege on Saturday 30 January 2010, they can only wonder what could have been. At about 1.35am on Sunday morning, some people started fighting, breaking and throwing bottles indiscriminately. The five friends who had planned to stay at the party until about 5am had to vote with their feet at about 1.30am.
“We decided to run to 18-20 Olatunde Isaac Close, Beckley Estate, Ahmadiya, Ijaiye, where one of our friends, Ikechukwu Patrick, resides. I got to the gate before the others and the guards I met there asked where I was coming from. I explained what transpired at the party and how my friends and I decided to leave the party. He told me to sit down and I obeyed. I answered all the questions he threw at me. About 10 minutes later my friends came and they identified Ikechukwu Patrick, I.K, as he is popularly called, as a resident of the estate. But suddenly one of their captors signalled to other members of the vigilance group by blowing his whistle. About six of them arrived the scene,’’ recalled Dayo, one of the victims.
The story changed at that point, with the vigilance group members calling the friends armed robbers and ordering them to lie face down. They threatened to kill them. As they tried to explain their ordeal to their captors, they got even more beating. They were allegedly beaten with some fetish stuff, iron rods and machetes. They were seriously injured as a result.
One of the victims, Collins Efozia, who is based in Switzerland, questioned the activities of the vigilance group thus: “How do these wicked people identify armed robbers? There were no guns or any weapon for that matter on us. We were just returning from a party where there was a serious commotion.” Napson Victor, on his part said: “I just pray that we are not in any way affected by the charm (juju) they used to beat us.”
Speaking on the matter, Ikechukwu Patrick said: “I live in the Beckley Estate and these vigilance group members know me. They know that I am not a trouble maker. Yet, they went ahead to humiliate my friends and I by calling us armed robbers, beating and inflicting injuries on us. To prove them wrong, I called one of my neighbours, Barrister Kazeem and his wife on phone. They came and told them that we were not armed robbers, but they refused to listen to the lawyer. What baffled us most, however, was how another resident, Mrs. Collins, insisted that we were armed robbers and that they should kill us.”
Filled with anger, Yemi Ajanaku, another victim said: “These illiterates behaved like mentally deranged people. Look at my head and body. If they had succeeded in killing us, they would have tagged us armed bandits. Innocent people have been killed in this way before. Look at how they have stabbed and inflicted machete cuts on us.’’
Across Nigeria was at Oko-Oba Divisional Headquarters at 5am on Sunday where the case was incidented. The Divisional Police Officer, CSP Omole Ola, immediately gave the victims a police report so that they could be attended to at Mercy Hospital, Oko-Oba. Even as they nurse their wounds, the hapless friends remain grateful to God for being alive.
– Reported by Oluwole Adeboye.
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