| Area Boys clash with
soldiers
By Mike Jimoh
Friday July 30, 2004
What would have been a bloodbath reminiscent of the face-off
between Air Force personnel and the police early this month
at Ikeja Air Force Base was tactfully averted after area boys
clashed with a clutch of Army personnel at central market,
Oyingbo, last Wednesday.
“It was a close shave,” a witness told Daily Sun
of the incident that had more than two dozen armed roughnecks
pitted against eight or so unarmed military men about 9 am
at a crossroad at the popular machine parts market in Lagos
mainland.
Everyone much knows that area boys in Lagos carry on like
oriental lords. They do just what they like and anyhow it
pleases them. Roughing up bus conductors and drivers, setting
up illegal tolls and harassing commuters in the city has since
been accepted as a norm.
But not many people suspected that the touts could possibly
dare military men and get away with it. Somewhere between
Freeman and Kano Streets where generator sets are sold and
repaired, some army officers had come to repair a faulty set.
To get to any of the shops, they must pass through an illegal
toll point erected by the touts. Drivers and shoppers never
go by without “dropping something.”
“We have had a running battle with touts here for some
time concerning how they disturb buyers,” Evangelist
Tony Onukwuli, chairman of Lagos Mainland Auto parts Association
told Daily Sun. According to him, after making purchases,
buyers are sometimes forced by the touts to part with money.
So, when the army vehicle approached, it was promptly stopped.
It did not matter to them that it was an army vehicle, nor
that the people in the bus, a Toyota Hiace, were all in uniform.
The area boys insisted they pay before proceeding.
Apparently, the uniformed personnel thought there must be
something wrong if their uniforms could not secure them a
gate pass. But the touts were equally adamant. One of them
was said to have tried to wrest the steering from the driver,
which then resulted in a free-for-all.
Within minutes, the army chaps were overwhelmed for they were
only eight in number and unarmed, too. Other touts that had
been watching from a distance joined in the fight. In no time,
the military guys made a beeline for safety, giving the area
boys an upper hand.
Soon after the incident, the matter was reported at Denton
Police Station, Oyingbo.
That a reprisal attack did not follow, Tony said, was due
to DPO Mohammed’s tactful handling of the matter. He
was said to have first contacted the Commissioner of Police,
Mr. Israel Ajao, to alert him as to what happened and to also
calm frayed nerves. The CP was said to have made frantic calls
to some top army officers who probably dissuaded their subordinates
from rightful vengeance. Part of the illegal toll gate has,
however, been dismantled.
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