Residents of Owode Housing Estate along Abeokuta Road, Ibadan, Oyo State on Sunday raised alarm over incessant armed robbery in the area. They swooped on hideouts of armed robbery gangsters who have been terrorizing the community in recent times, dispossessing them of valuables running into several millions of naira. The residents in a Save-Our-Soul (SOS) petition, dispatched to the state police command, they pleaded for the location of police posts within the locality.
According to them, this will enable the police to mount 24-hour surveillance on the area with a view to checkmating the activities of the hoodlums who have been making life unbearable for them. In the petition jointly signed by Chief Waheed Agbomeji and Pastor S. O. Shiyanbola respectively, the community expressed their grave concern that the adjoining sprawling Government Reservation Area (GRA), which had already been overtaken by a thick forest, has been turned into ‘escape routes’ by the hoodlums, who perpetrate their heinous crimes on residents of Owode Housing Estate.
They disclosed that virtually on a daily basis, they "paid unscheduled" visits to them during which they carted away their properties. Apart from incessant armed robbery attacks on residents’ homes, the community also listed cases of kidnappings as well as suspicious movements of Fulani and Bororo cattle rearers who pose serious threat to lives and properties of residents as their cattle destroy crops of local farmers.
The community further lamented the recurring incidents of burial of unregistered corpses in the Reservation bushes by unknown people and indiscriminate dumping of poultry remittances in the area, which have been making life uncomfortable for the teeming residents.
While commending the efforts of the Divisional Police Officer for Apata Division, Mr. Sunday Aganga and his team for their positive responses to their calls occasionally, the community insisted that citing police post at Owode Housing Estate would checkmate the present state of insecurity and restore the much desired sanity to the residential area.
