Goons On The Prowl

With the renewed efforts of the security agencies to curb crimes in Port Harcourt and its environs, the men of the underworld are also devising measures and strategies to carry on their illicit trades.
With a palpable sense of apprehension, residents of the city and its environs are worried that their daily existence is ruffled by the prowling activities of hoodlums and goons that slice their pounds of flesh from their victims in a delirious order and get along with their insipid taste.
The city is perhaps under the siege of organised crimes, particularly as citizens battle with the covid-9 crisis, and taking the lessons of survival seriously.
While many battle with economic exigencies to make ends meet, their efforts are sabotaged by outlaws on the prowl of the city and its nooks and crannies.
The  Port Harcourt Metro investigations revealed that within the yuletide, hoodlums had a harvest of crime as they burgled into shops of residents and carted away their wares in night operations.
Some shop owners in the Elekahia axis of Port Harcourt who had their shops burgled, narrated their ordeals to the Port Harcourt Metro.
A shoe dealer simply known as Emeka, said he returned to Port Harcourt after the festive period and met his shop vandalised and robbed of goods worth N2 million.
“ I travelled to my community during the festive period and left my shop secured and intact, but when I came back early January, I found out that some people broke into my shop and looted all my goods, I was speechless and till this moment I haven’t recovered from the shock because there’s no money with me at the moment, things are very hard, I don’t know where to start from.”
His case is similar to that of Ikaba Wilson who sells jewelries along Rumu-omasi road.
Wilson said his shop was robbed while he was in his hometown for the new year celebration.
“ I went to my community and spent only four days and returned to Port Harcourt, but to my greatest surprise, I met my shop completely empty. My jewelries and other products worth N3.5 million were stolen, it’s very difficult for me to cope with this situation, especially this January that things are very hard, the most embarrassing aspect is that we pay some money on monthly basis to vigilantes in the area. the security agencies especially the police should put in more efforts to save the lives of the people.”
The merchants of banditry and organised crimes in Port Harcourt and its environs seem to have a sprawling network in the operations They inundate the city on sensitive surveillance of target areas and swing into action at odd hours, mostly nights to carry out their operations.
The Port Harcourt Metro investigation revealed that these bandits hibernate within areas like railway lines, sub-urban shanties and other bogey driven areas of their relative advantage where they trap unsuspecting passers-by  and strip them of their possessions, such as cash, phones, and other personal belongings.
Besides the outright displacement of people of their possessions at gun point, some of the hoodlums live by touting  and extortion of money from commercial motorists.
At the Rumukwurushi axis of Port Harcourt, a notorious tout operating under the name  ‘Stone’ is reported to have perfected the act of extorting money from commercial motorists through illegal charges.
‘Stone’ is said to be in unrelenting force in his mode of operation with some acolytes that use pseudo names on non-existing unions to defraud their victims.
Some motorists who spoke with Port Harcourt Metro, said the activities of Stone and his boys have inflicted pains on them.
A motorist, Godwin Itang, told the Port Harcourt Metro that hoodlums disguising as task force men extort money from them on daily basis.
“We, taxi drivers suffer so much in the hands of illegal task forcemen, they claim to be union officials and throw all manner of tickets into our vehicles, when we confront them, they threaten our lives, at least we can differentiate the government task force from the illegal task forces, the illegal task forces always escape when they sight the government task force. We want government to do something about this, it’s like we commercial motorists are working for the touts, it’s quite unfortunate, they also work with some police officers on the road,” he said.

By: Taneh Beemene