Northern Youths Arrested In Lagos ”Over Mass Movement”

Lagos state government on Friday confirmed arrest of 123 young men mostly from the northern part of Nigeria and detained for “mass movement” into the state.

The government confirmed their arrest and detention through its verified Twitter handle.

It said the youths were majorly commercial motorcyclists and they were arrested while trying to enter Lagos.

According to the government “The Lagos State Environment Sanitation and Special Offenses Taskforce on Friday intercepted a truck laden with 48 motorcycles and 123 men coming from Jigawa State.’’

It said, “Arrest of illegal mass movement of Okada riders to Lagos from the North jointly coordinated by the State Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Mr Tunji Bello and his Transportation counterpart, Dr Abimbola Oladehinde.’’

“The truck was seized, following a tip-off by members of the public who raised security concern about the manner with which the occupants of the truck conducted themselves.

“The truck was seized, following a tip-off by members of the public who raised security concern about the manner with which the occupants of the truck conducted themselves.

The chairman of Lagos State Taskforce, Yinka Egbeyemi, said the truck was stopped in the wee hours of Thursday, after a security alert.

Yinka Egbeyemi said his team swiftly responded to the information, which led to the interception of the truck and its occupants in Agege area of Lagos.

“While my team was on an operation, we got information from the public that some people had entered into Lagos in a trailer loaded with over 300 people. We swiftly responded to the alert and trailed the truck from the Berger area to Agege. We eventually intercepted the truck which carried no few than 123 men and 48 motorcycles.

He said, “We have interrogated most of the truck’s occupants; from the information we gathered, some of them said they were coming from Jigawa State, with 48 of them claiming to own seized motorcycles. The rest of them said they came to Lagos in search of greener pasture.”

Mr Egbeyemi said the Lagos Police Command had directed that a fact-finding panel be constituted to profile the detained occupants of the truck, but he added that nothing incriminating was found on them apart from the motorcycles.

One of the detained youth, Shuaibu Haruna, said he left Jigawa State to work in Lagos with his motorcycle. According to him,  he has a wife and a son but said he needed to double his income to cater for his family.

Haruna said he intended to stay in Isolo area to which he had already paid N7,000 as accommodation fee.

Solacebase gathered that although Okada riding has been outlaw on major roads in Lagos, there are still hundreds of thousands of operators in the state without being arrested.