•Abuja refugees’ abode now harbours armed robbers, drug addicts, car snatchers, others
From Molly Kilete, Abuja
The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), is now a t criminals’ haven. Rather than a place of succour for displaced citizens, hardened criminals have turned it to a den for high profile armed robbers, car snatchers, drug addicts and a market for hard drugs and stolen goods.
Wednesday April 30 and Thursday May 1, 2025, would forever be bad memory for these criminal elements when police, military and security agencies stormed the IDPs camp to round up criminals terrorising residents of the FCT.
The camp, though not officially allocated, according to investigation to a group or group of persons, is located around Area One. Complaints of criminal attacks on traders, workers, pedestrians, food vendors, motorists and others where their phones, handbags, jewelries and other valuables are snatched on gunpoint and knives point are being reported on a daily basis in police stations.
The hoodlums who claimed to be IDPs from some of Boko Haram ravaged states in the North and other parts of the country, operated on motorbikes, unregistered vehicles and other means of transportation to carry out their attacks. They operated anytime of the day without fear of being arrested by the security agencies.
Their deadly activities included armed robbery, house breaking, one-chance robbery, car snatching, phone/handbag snatching, stabbing of victims among other activities. This led to the untimely deaths and maiming, some of whom still recuperating in hospitals.
Attempt by the police to effect arrest of perpetrators of these evil acts led to deadly exchange of fire and casualties on both sides. The hoodlums were daring in their deadly operations even in broad day light.
Residents living around the surrounding villages, resulted to using other safer parks aside the Area One Park to get to their destinations for fear of being attacked. Previous attempts by the police to curb the menace were met with stiff resistance from occupants of the IDPs camp.
However all these came to an end when the Commissioner of Police, FCT, Adewale Ajao, working in conjunction with the military and other security agencies stormed the camp and gave the criminals the battle of their lives. The criminals returned fire but were overpowered by the superior powers of the joint forces.
At the end of the operations, items recovered from the camp were stolen mind blowing. They included 149 stolen mobile phones, 109 stolen ATM cards, 10 POS machines, Ipads/tablets, 14 laptops, 19 powerbanks, two generator sets and 15 motorcycles. Others were large quantity of cannabis, methamphetamine, ziphanol, codeine, tramadol tablets, 225 tablets of exol, 52 tablets of diazepam, one axe, three scissors, one crusher and some stolen vehicles.
Some of the suspects confessed to the crimes. They told Daily Sun of how they pretended to be IDPs and went about robbing people. They usually operated with motorcycles during the day where they positioned themselves at popular bus stops to attack people. This they did by pointing gun at their victims or knives before snatching their valuables.
They also confessed to use cars especially Golf brand with no registration number to carry out their operations by pretending to be commercial taxis to pick passengers. They used to go to places like banks, busy shopping plazas and other populated places in the FCT to monitor the movements of their would-be victims, especially those they perceived to carry money on them.
Upon picking them, they pretended to be going towards their direction. But half way into the journey, they threatened them with knives and other dangerous weapons after successfully clinging them to their seat, disposed them of their phones, laptops, jewelry and other valuables.
The suspects said that they usually went through the messages in the victims’ phones to check their bank credit alert. If the victim had enough money, they would then drive to ATM operators after forcing the victim to give his/her password and made withdrawals.
In the case where the victims had plenty money in their bank accounts, they would need to visit many POS operators until they emptied the accounts which sometimes took nearly 24 hours. After emptying the account, they pushed the victim out of the moving vehicle no matter the time of the day. The suspects disclosed that they had on several occasions, pushed out their victims in the middle of the night or after midnight.
The suspects now in police custody undergoing further interrogations would be charged to court as soon as investigations were concluded. Ajao said he would no longer tolerate activities of hoodlums, vowing to carry out more raids on identified criminal hideouts in Abuja.