Road block: Robbers attack PUNCHman as soldiers extort Ogun motorists

Hundreds of motorists and residents plying the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway to navigate their destinations within and beyond Orimerunmu community, in the Obafemi Owode Local Government Area of Ogun State, have complained about being subjected to traumatising tortures by soldiers who indiscriminately mount roadblock on the expressway to extort money from them on a daily basis.

PUNCH Metro gathered that the soldiers, while operating at will, and under the guise of conducting routine security checks, usually used barricades to create a checkpoint on the expressway.

The situation usually caused a backlog of traffic induced by the slow-paced movement of vehicles navigating the narrow opening created by the soldiers on the expressway.

However, while motorists lamented being trapped for hours in the gridlock that stretched from Orimerunmu to the Lotto end of the expressway, they complained bitterly that hoodlums had been taking advantage of the situation to rob them of their valuables while stuck in the gridlock.

Traders and residents, whose houses and shops are located in neighbourhoods along the stretch of the gridlock, also said the hoodlums, occasionally, invaded their communities to attack and dispossess them of their valuables.

On Monday, a PUNCHman, Olalekan Adetayo, while returning from work, around 12-midnight, ran into the gridlock induced by soldiers extorting motorists at the checkpoint they mounted on the expressway.

Trapped in the gridlock alongside other motorists, a machete-wielding hoodlum appeared beside Adetayo’s car and ordered him to wind down.

Concerned about the imminent security threat, the journalist said he refused and in a desperate attempt to attack him, the hoodlum used the machete to smash the windshield of his car at the passenger’s side and ordered him to relinquish his mobile phone.

Angered by the PUNCHman’s refusal to obey the command, the machete-wielding suspect moved to the driver’s side and again destroyed the windshield while consistently demanding that he surrendered the phone.

Adetayo said, “I left the office around 11.30pm after the day’s production. A few minutes to 12 midnight, I ran into a gridlock created by soldiers at Lotto Bus Stop along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, just a few metres before I could make a detour into the road leading to my area.

“About two minutes after I ran into the gridlock, a machete-wielding young man appeared beside my car and ordered me to wind down. I refused and he used the machete to break the windshield of my car at the passenger’s side.

“He told me to give him my mobile phone but I refused. He became annoyed, came to meet me at the driver’s side, and again destroyed the windshield. He kept demanding my phone but as I tried to manoeuvre my way out of the gridlock, I rammed into vehicles at the front and behind me and still got stuck in the gridlock.”

Adetayo said other motorists who witnessed as he raised the alarm about the suspect’s action abandoned him to his fate, adding that bent on achieving his aim, the hoodlum still kept demanding his phone.

He added, “As he demanded my phone, he warned me against stepping out of the car but because of the threat to my life, I stepped out of the car to scamper to safety and he struck my head with his machete. He quickly reached for my Samsung A25 mobile phone and fled. Punch