There were heavy gunshots and serious pandemonium on Wednesday as commercial motorcyclists and illegal squatters attacked the operatives of the Lagos State Task Force on the environment and other related offences around Fagba, Abbatoir areas of the state.

Many people, including some of the operatives of the Task Force, were reportedly injured in the clash between the police operatives and the hoodlums.

The spokesperson of the Task Force, Gbadeyan Abdulraheen, said that a total of four hundred and twenty-five motorcycles were impounded while many shanties were demolished.

The Task Force had some months demolished the shanties in the area but defiant squatters and commercial motorcyclists returned to the corridor.

Eyewitnesses in the area said that the policemen returned on Wednesday to demolish the newly erected shanties when the owners and irate motorcyclists attacked them.

Armed with various dangerous weapons, the hoodlums reportedly threw these objects at the policemen, who also shot sporadically to disperse them.

The clash between the security operatives and the hoodlums created serious panic as residents, passers-by and others scampered for safety.

One of the occupants of the shanties in Fagba, Muhammed Usman, blamed the high cost of accommodation in Lagos State for his return to the railway line.

He said, “The cost of renting a house in Lagos is too expensive and beyond the shanties owners, so we decided to store our goods in the shanties.

“We can’t afford house rents in Lagos. I am a scavenger, no landlord will give me a house to store the rubbish that I pick up every day and we are not allowed to sleep in Abattoir market.

“Our places in the North have been taken over by bandits and terrorists. We don’t know where to run to, taskforce should leave us alone,” he said.

An Okada rider, Musa Ibrahim, said, “We pay money for tickets to the officials of the Lagos State Government, yet it is the same government that sends its agency to come after us.”

He added, “If they don’t want us to operate in the area, they should stop selling tickets to us; the same thing with the police. We contribute money for the police, yet they are the ones that will still escort government agencies to raid us. That is why we will continue to resist government agencies, especially”

Task Force spokesperson in a statement on Wednesday said “no retreat no surrender attitude of the Lagos State Taskforce on commercial motorcycles popularly known as okada and the defiant squatters who erect shanties along the rail tracks came to play today when the Agency swept 425 bikes and demolished shanties along Fagba corridor as a follow-up after the launch of the Red Line Rail project of the Lagos State Government.”

He added that, “The two days-long operation which was led by the Chairman of the Agency, CSP Shola Jejeloye covered areas like Fagba Rail Track, Iju-Ishaga, Abbatoir and Pen Cinema resulting in the confiscation of bikes that operated on restricted routes, State Highways and Bridges located in those areas.” (Nigerian Tribune)

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