The Lagos Police Command has arrested no fewer than four residents linked to the vandalizing Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and dispossessing passengers inside the bus of their property along Lagos-Badagry expressway.
The four suspects were 30-year-old Muhammad Ali, 35-year-old Ibrahim Lawal, 20-year-old Abati Daniel, and 32-year-old Ilesanmi Kazeem.
Arrest of the suspected came barely 14 days after hoodlums attacked BRT bus around Alaba Suru end of the Lagos-Badagry expressway, robbing passengers of their valuables.
The Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Olusola Olusoye, who paraded the suspects on Wednesday at the Lagos Taskforce office in Oshodi, disclosed that they would be arraign before court for prosecution to serve as deterrent to other still nursing the ambition to attempt the act.
Olusola stated that the suspects injured the passengers, leaving them with varying degrees of injuries, and left with their valuables.
To avert further attacks, the Commissioner added that security agencies are stationed at BRT stations to monitor and observe activities daily.
The Chairman of the Lagos State Taskforce on Environmental Sanitation and Special Offences, CSP Adetayo Akerele, who condemned the attack on the buses, declared that the state has zero tolerance for such acts.
He assured Lagosians that efforts would be intensified to avert such act through raiding of blackspots and arresting of criminals across the state.
One of the arrested suspects, Abati Daniel, a fashion designer from Ogun State, claimed innocence, stating that he was apprehended while on his way to get drugs for his pregnant wife.
Daniel, who faulted the law enforcement agency’s claim, alleged that aside from the money and drugs prescribed for his pregnant wife which the police found inside his pocket, there was nothing linking him to the attack and robbery case.
He appealed to Nigerians for assistance to get him released, saying I am innocent and all that is ascribed to me by the police are not true.
