Haruna Hassan, alias Mairago, told me at Dei-Dei recently that he would live to remember the day a gentleman, clutching a small bundle of substance wrapped in a black polythene bag, alighted from a commuter-service motorcycle, and going up the pedestrian bridge built there along the Kubwa Expressway, when two thieves on a motorcycle frenzied forth behind him, swiftly snatched it from him and left with a dumbfounding daredevil expertise into the nooks of the satellite town, before the gaping onlookers could scream for any help.
The polythene bag contained the sum of N160,000.00. The ruffled gentleman was probably heading for the International Cattle Market just about half a kilometer on the outskirts of the town. He, perhaps, never thought it amounted to some ‘punishable carelessness’ on his part, going with a wrap of polythene bag, or any bag at all, in the midst of a thickening crowd building up around the very busy pedestrian bridge.
Moreover, who would even have thought that he was carrying money, when, as he might have thought, everybody should be engrossed with the thought of doing whatever he set out for, like boarding a sound and fast auto vehicle to Katsina, Kano or Sokoto in the expansive motor park beside the pedestrian bridge?
So, he thought his money was safe. It was not safe. And, wherever he is as this story is being told, the gentleman may still be remembering the fateful day with grief.
Recently, numerous residents of Dei-dei and passersby often recounted their respective ordeals with criminals infesting the pedestrian bridge and its vicinity. The reigning climax of these ordeals was the robbery attack about a couple of years ago on the new cash notes sellers operating there, allegedly to the tune of millions of Naira. Over a long time, related criminalities are allegedly perpetrated sporadically there to the point that whoever you are, so it is said, you must mind the safety of your belongings as you pass through the vicinity.
This situation could sufficiently explain why the Police, apart from stationing an outpost adjacent the pedestrian bridge at each side of the expressway, pounced on the structure and its vicinity with what they describe as decisive force, as well as mounting what they describe as a rigorous 24-hour patrol, to clear the notorious location of all miscreants.
However, most residents of the satellite town, decrying their prolonged entrapment by what they describe as clusters of hemp-smoking miscreants surrounding them, especially around the cattle market, maintain that the criminals have mastered the operations of the Police to the point that any criminal could strike without the Police catching him. The Police insist no criminal operates there without the police arresting him.
“It is true that criminals operate around the pedestrian bridge,” Haruna Hassan, who hails from Kontagora in Niger State, and has lived at Dei-Dei for 18 years now, offered, adding: “We are also among the victims, and I will live to remember that day with regrets. I remember the day someone came and bought a N250,000.00 worth of cow from me. While the cow was being slaughtered and the meat prepared for him to enable him convey it to his destination with ease, he told me to accompany him to buy yams under the pedestrian bridge, that was about 4:30 pm. The man came with his son, who he picked from school after he closed from work, in his car. We left the boy there in custody of the man’s bag to go a few metres away for a better choice of yams to buy.”
Hassan Mairago continued: “While we were away bargaining for the yams to buy, two criminals roaming under the bridge, who might have been studying our movements, approached the boy in the car and told him that his father said he should give them his bag, which contained a substantial sum of US dollars and all his documents. We wailed, pleading with the crowd of people surrounding the car that whoever was in possession of the bag should keep the dollars and return the bag and the documents. Our pleas fell on deaf ears. As a result of that occurrence, I have not sighted the gentleman at Dei-Dei to this day.”
The cattle merchant lamented: “As a result of the activities of criminals in the vicinity of the pedestrian bridge many people have stopped coming to buy animals at Dei-Dei. These criminal activities are taking their toll on the economy of Dei-Dei, because this is one of the three main entrances into the Federal Capital City. A large number of auto vehicles park here to discharge their passengers and, consequently, revenues are collected from these vehicles. Many of such passengers have fallen victims of such criminals. Many passengers refusing to board vehicles parking at Dei-Dei means a reduction in the number of vehicles parking at Dei-dei, and that means a reduction in the reduction of revenues collected at Dei-Dei. Don’t forget that many people, like that guest of mine whose ordeal I recounted to you, have stopped coming to buy animals from us.”
Hassan Mairago recalled further: “The man who had his N160,000.00 snatched, between 5 pm and 6 pm on that fateful day, alighted from a commuter-service motorcycle at the other side of the road when the thieves, as if waiting for him, ready to flee on their motorcycle, snatched it and disappeared . I was waiting there to board a vehicle to Banex Plaza at Wuse 11 when I witnessed this occurrence. The victim screamed aloud, saying, my money! But the gaping onlookers could do nothing to help him because the criminals had fled.”
Such criminalities are still being perpetrated under the pedestrian bridge and its vicinity, “but, to be fair to them, the law enforcement agents are trying their best to stop such criminal activities. In fact, the Police sometimes receive threats from these criminals. They dare the police sometimes. What do you expect from someone who is high on drugs, and believes he is prepared with the required charms making him impervious to all blades and other weapons? The police can only boast of their gun, but these criminals are not afraid of the gun. When you observe that a criminal is not afraid of your weapon, you should know that you have an exceptional problem to handle.”
The cattle merchant recalled: “Look! A car was even snatched there once, but, fortunately, it had a security device. It was, therefore, recovered shortly after as they made their way to Gwagwa. The car owner brought his wife to board a vehicle at the motor park to a destination up north . He parked under the bridge. The criminals asked if he wanted to exchange his money for new notes. He said no. But they dragged him out and fled with the car.”
He said apart from the Police, the Dei-dei community also has a vigilante group, but “they only operate at night and sleep during the day. Nobody pays them. So, nobody can force them to operate during the day, when the criminals usually operate. In fact, the vigilante operation has not reduced the prevalence of criminalities under the bridge and its surroundings.”
That is the fate of Dei-Dei residents and passers-by, Hassan remarked.
“I must be fair to the Police,” Nura Mohammed Dammusa, another resident, offered, saying, “they are trying their best. Even though their best may not be enough to completely stamp out criminalities under the bridge, they are doing very well, especially by scaring away those criminals who are still not hardened to a high degree .”
According to him, the operation of the new cash notes sellers there has reduced the prevalence of criminal activities there because “since that robbery incident about two years ago, the new notes traders, who are, directly or indirectly, most of the victims of most of the criminal activities, have learnt to be battle-ready to tackle any criminal, and they are ready to kill any such criminal on the spot.”
Nura queried: “Haven’t you observed that they no longer line up, sometimes even into the service lane of the road, flaunting the new notes in their hands to persuade auto vehicle passengers to stop and buy, as they usually did in the past? These criminals taught many of them bitter lessons. While flaunting the new notes, the criminals, especially operating on a motorbike, would just speed forth and snatch as much as they could, and vanish at high speed. By this method, they lost huge amounts to snatch-and-flee criminals.”
He said, “Climaxing with the robbery incident, the new notes traders have learnt to be ever on their guard. I now believe that only daredevil criminals try anything nasty there. In my own view, these new notes traders and the Police have consorted to successfully check the occurrence of criminalities under the pedestrian bridge and its surroundings,” remarking that they still happen sometimes.
“I am baffled to hear anyone saying that criminal activities still occur there, when even the CP (FCT Commissioner of Police) has sent commendation to us for ridding that location of all criminals and miscreants, and even the residents there are thanking us for that,” CSP Mohammed M. Umar, the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in charge of Zuba, charged, continuing, “I don’t know why people cry Wolf where there is none.”
He stressed: “With a Police station at each side of the expressway in the vicinity of the pedestrian bridge and the 24-hour permanent patrol we mount there, I can assure you that we have cleared that location of all criminals and miscreants. If you hear about any criminal activity there, it must have occurred a very long time ago. That person whose N160,000.00 you said was snatched by thieves there must have been trailed by the thieves from wherever they noticed him. They are not resident there. I wish to state: No more criminals there.”
Generally, residents of the Dei-Dei community still point to criminal activities which still go on at the spot.
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