Narrow Escape: Armed robbers hijack bus, rob passengers in Lagos

Operatives of the Rapid Response Squad successfully rescued six passengers from suspected armed robbers last Thursday.

The robbers had hijacked a commercial bus to commit the heinous crime and were enroute Iyana-Iba from Iyana-Ipaja when their evil activity was thwarted by the police.

They abandoned the vehicle and fled. A gun was recovered from the bus.

According to the police, four suspected robbers hijacked the bus immediately one of the passengers alighted at Diamond Estate, Isheri, Lagos.

The bus driver, Sherrif Dada, said “at 11:00 p.m on Thursday, after a chartered trip to Sango, my conductor and I went to our usual route at Egbeda to make some more money before the closing for the day. We saw lots of passengers at Egbeda Bus Stop who were heading to Igando.

“We picked the passengers and we dropped the first passenger at Diamond Estate Bus Stop. When we left the Bus Stop, one of the passengers, four guys in their 20s brought out a gun and told me to stop.

“After pinning the gun to my head, other robbers began to ransack the passengers particularly, a lady carrying a handbag and her Infinix Note 4 android phone. The robbers began to scuffle with the lady to dispossess her of her belongings but the lady refused to surrender her bag.

“It wasn’t quite long my conductor escaped, they threw me down on motion on seeing an RRS patrol vehicle chasing us,” the driver said.

The conductor, Hakeem Hassan, said he was held down at gun point while attempting to jump off the speeding bus to stop him from raising alarm.

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Hassan stated, “unfortunately for them I managed to escape from the bus after the driver slowed down. I ran for my dear life. They threatened to shoot me but I defied all their threat to stop me from calling attention of those around the area.

“Immediately I managed to jump from the bus, I ran backward screaming for help and also hearing the robber telling me to stop that he was going to shoot me but I continued running until I ran into a filling station.”

“It wasn’t quite long I had been screaming for help when I saw an RRS patrol vehicle speeding towards me. I guessed other road users who saw me had told them,” he added.

One of the commuters said: “The chase by RRS unsettled robbers. They instantly stopped collecting our valuables and were thinking of how to escape. We passed Igando General Hospital, they drove the danfo into a bush and escaped.”