Bayo Ogunmupe
Wednesday April 24 was the third consecutive day of terror by fraudsters at Shittu Street junction of Morgan Street Idi Araba, a predominant Arewa community between Mushin and Surulere, Lagos state. At about 6.30 p.m on this fateful day, women and students on holiday rained curses and shouts of "thief, thief" on a bunch of fraudsters who dispossessed two young men of their money and valuables at Shittu junction.
Returning from a visit to an ailing friend at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) at the time, this reporter alighted at Morgan Bus stop to investigate the commotion. A beautician on the street told me that Shittu junction had become the abode of Fraudsters known in local parlance as 419ners. They have been terrorizing visitors and residents of the community since a recently graduated medical doctor was knifed to death by one of them at LUTH. They had been on the run since then and they have taken up a temporary abode at the Mechanic Shed there.
At this Wednesday evening episode, the victims were strangers visiting their relatives there when the incident occurred, the beautician said. Another person, a woman food vendor told me that fraudsters are now rampant in the area due to the biting economic downturn in the country at present. He said the Police understand the situation and are on patrol in the area but perhaps due to insider information the fraudsters always know when the Police are visiting they then go into hiding. They always boast the Police only need returns for them to operate freely.
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