SUSPECTED ROBBERS BEATEN TO PULP AND KILLED BY RESIDENTS IN SABO, LAGOS

By Akpabio Aniema

Two young persons were stoned to death in Sabo, Yaba for robbing an old man of 79 years old of his money and phone. The old man Emmanuel Thomas was attacked in his home by 4am on Saturday in McNeil Road, Sabo – Yaba.
The old man alleged that his guest was beaten up by the robbers as they demanded for all his money. He narrated his ordeal, ‘‘I was in my room and a guest was in my sitting room. But because there was no electricity supply, I opened the main doors for cross ventilation. A few minutes later, two young guys barged into the house. One of them slapped my female guest who was in the sitting room and snatched her phone and charger, the other guy told me to give him all my money and I told him all I had was N30 which was kept inside my bible. They also snatched my phone and wristwatch’’

It was learnt that prior to the robbery, youths in the area had been suspicious of the alleged robbers, wondering what the strange men were looking for in their street at such an odd hour of the day having seen them strolling about in the street. One of the youths, Adams (not real name) said, ‘‘Around 3.30 am, I was on my way back from a carnival when I noticed two strange faces on Little Road. When they saw me they pretended to be a bus driver and a conductor trying to fix an abandoned bus that has broken down on the street and waiting for the day to break.’’ ‘‘But when I walked past them they continued to roam the street, so I informed one of my friends and together, we tailed them. Suddenly, they entered Pa Thomas’s house and then I heard the old man screamed for help.’’
‘‘We quickly surrounded the house and dared them to come out, when they saw that they had been trapped, one of them jumped the fence into the next compound which is on Little Road and escaped while the other one caught.’’ The arrested robber was beaten to a pulp and an hour later, the one that escaped into another compound and hid there was discovered by a resident and he was handed over to the angry youths and they were beaten mercilessly. The residents claimed that they took laws into their hands and didn’t get the police involved because most of the police from Sabo Division had been diverted to Iwaya to calm a serious crisis that was happening there. It was also learnt that the robbers usually hang around a brothel located on a neighbouring street and that if they should be handed over to the police, they would be released in no time and comes back to terrorise them. It was further learnt that the robbers were stripped naked after mercilessly beaten, though still alive and dumped at the Sabo end of Herbert Macaulay way, about some 200 metres from the Sabo Police Division. It was however learnt that passers-by threw stones at them until they died. A resident of McNeil, Sola by name, has this to say, ‘‘It was not our intention to kill the robbers, we only beat them up and dumped them by the road side, it was the passers-by who after learning what they did that threw stones and rock on them till they died.’’ By the time the policemen arrived by 9am the alleged robbers were already dead.