At least six suspected members of a notorious “one-chance” syndicate operating beneath the Ijora Bridge corridor of Lagos were arrested on Thursday by the officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA).
The arrest, it was gathered, were made during a joint inter-agency enforcement exercise targeted at dismantling illegal garages and parks operated by commercial transporters.
The enforcement exercise was also aimed at removing unauthorised shanties and criminal hideouts around Apapa Road, Costain, and the Ijora underbridge.
The suspects operate by robbing unsuspecting commuters after picking them up as passengers, an act that is popularly known as ‘one chance’ in Nigeria.
Items recovered included 77 mobile phones, two Point of Sale machines, wristwatches, and other personal effects believed to have been forcibly taken from unsuspecting commuters and pedestrians.
The operation, led by the Special Adviser to the Governor on Transportation, Sola Giwa, featured a strong coalition of enforcement operatives drawn from the Nigeria Police Force, Mobile Police (MOPOL), Lagos State Task Force, Lagos State Environmental Sanitation Corps (LAGESC), and the Nigerian Army.
“Preliminary investigations have revealed that the Ijora under-bridge axis had long served as a criminal enclave, accommodating miscreants, illegal traders, and ‘one-chance’ syndicates who specialize in orchestrated theft, violent assaults, and dispossession of innocent citizens.
“The area had also evolved into a clandestine storage hub for stolen valuables and contraband goods,” LASTMA said in a statement by its Director, Public Affairs and Enlightenment Department, Adebayo Taofiq.
