Following the discovery of a woman, Folake and two others inside a tunnel, under the Cele NICA Bridge, Ijanikin, Lagos, with a decomposing human body, street urchins have declared war on lunatics in the state.
The youths now tag mad people, ritualists.
The Lagos State Commissioner of Police has warned that the force would deal decisively with any person found administering jungle justice on any mad person, as no one has the right to take life.
Already, one of the suspects found in the tunnel was set ablaze by an irate mob before the police arrived the scene.
The discovery of Folake attracted an irate mob, which nearly lynched her but for the quick intervention of a contingent of policemen drafted from Ijanikin Divisional Police Headquarters.
The team thereafter searched the tunnel and arrested one Emmanuel, believed to be an accomplice of the female suspect, while the third suspect, who escaped from the tunnel, was caught by a mob that set him ablaze.
Police spokesman in the state, Chike Oti, said the Commissioner of Police, Imohimi Edgal, yesterday, directed the divisional police officer in charge of Ijanikin to cordon off the scene and ensure that the body found in the tunnel was not tampered with, pending the arrival of police forensic experts expected at the scene for scientific examination of the corpse, the tunnel, and other exhibits found therein.
Oti said: “The CP said it was regrettable that, despite the various town hall meetings he has held to sensitise communities in the state to the evil of jungle justice, some people at Olorunshogo community constituted themselves into a mob and took the law into their hands by killing one of the suspects who might have been very useful in the ongoing investigation had they handed him over to the police.
“He warned that anybody found to have participated in the killing of the yet-to-be-identified man will be charged for murder to serve as a deterrent to others with a penchant for taking the law into their hands.”
