An 11-year-old street urchin, Hamed Gilani, has told police interrogators he didn’t see anything wrong in smoking Indian hemp, saying he has been smoking the weed since he was nine. Gilani was among 71 persons operatives of the Lagos State Task Force arrested yesterday in an early morning raid they carried out along the railway-line at Oshodi, in the Lagos metropolis.

“I was introduced into drug by my street uncle, one of those bigger men I met when I started sleeping under the bridge at Oshodi and I ran errands for,” he said.

Gilani disclosed that he fled to Lagos from one of the neighbouring states after his parents went their separate ways.

A robbery suspect, Suraju Ademola, also arrested on the Oshodi rail track confessed to being part of the criminal gang that was always robbing innocent members of the public of their valuables around the Oshodi bridge.

Ademola said he has been residing under the bridge for the past seven months. The Chairman of the task force, Olayinka Egbeyemi, who led the enforcement team in the early morning raid, disclosed that some of the persons arrested were in possession of dangerous drugs like codeine, Indian hemp, skunk and tramadol. Egbeyemi reiterated that all identified black spots across the state would be continuously raided and the criminals found there arrested and prosecuted. He added that 13 persons out of those arrested yesterday were released after they were thoroughly screened. “Gilani, the only under-aged male among them has been transferred to the Lagos State Correctional Centre for proper rehabilitation,” he said.

•Credit (except headline): Daily Trust. Photo shows some of the suspects arrested by operatives of the Lagos State Taskforce during an early morning raid in Oshodi, Lagos

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