We will get Festac robbers, police boss vows

Victims’ survivor recounts ordeal
LAGOS State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Fatai Owoseni, yesterday vowed to arrest perpetrators of the bank robbery on 4th Avenue, Festac town.
Owoseni told The Guardian yesterday that the incident has challenged the police in the command to rise up to new trends in robbery operations.

He said the police was closing in on the hoodlums that took Festac town by storm with their high profile armament and all has been put in place to ensure the suspects were captured.

He assured Lagosians of robust security adding that the perpetrators would be arrested and paraded before members of the public. According to him, police intervention helped to reduce casualty during the incident.
“Incidents like this challenge us to rise up and strategize. What I can assure residents of this city is that there is no insecurity in Lagos. We would continue to strategize. I won’t tell you all that we are doing but what I can assure you is that we would get the suspects.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Peter Njirika, the widower of the woman who was killed alongside her daughter by stray bullet from the robbers spoke to newsmen yesterday.

According to Peter, “When I got back home in the evening, I saw blood every where and I met people in the house and a girl cleaning blood and was shouting “my sister! My sister!”(My wife), and then I asked what happened to your sister? But she couldn’t give me an answer. I was told to go to the hospital at First Gate.
“When I got there, I saw my wife lying lifelessly and then I asked, what about my daughter? They told me that they have taken her to Navy Hospital at Satellite Town. I had to take my wife away from where she was to Alimosho General Hospital, where she used to work as a nurse. It was there that she was confirmed dead.
“She has since been taken to a mortuary at Isolo General Hospital. I was still in the shock of the tragedy when I received a phone call from my wife’s younger brother. I asked him where my daughter was and he told me she is dead too.”

The daughter has since been buried on Tuesday night at a mechanic village around Alakija. Dare-devil armed robbers had held the entire residents of Festac town, hostage, looting three banks and wounding many.

Describing his late wife, Peter said: “She worked all her life for humanity and all her intentions were on how to please the next person. She always cared for the less privilege and ready to help. I can’t blame anybody, even God who allowed it to happen, because there’s nothing that can happen without His permission.”