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Business has returned to normal at Opebi Road, Ikeja, after a robbery attack at one of the shops in the area.

About four armed persons had, on Friday, stormed a Sharp Electronics shop at the area and made away with mobile phones, video cameras, and an undisclosed sum of money. According to eye witnesses, the incident, which occurred at about 10am, and lasted between 45 minutes to one hour, recorded no casualty. A police officer, said to be eating at a nearby restaurant, arrived about one hour later to engage the robbers in a gunfight before they escaped.

“They drove in with their vehicle just like every other customer that comes here,” said a security officer at the shop who did not want to be named. “Some of the customers who come here usually come with Echolac bags because they may be going to the airport and so when we saw them with those bags, we never suspected anything. They smashed all the LCD televisions and also went upstairs to destroy the CCTV there. They robbed a woman of her N50, 000 and her car keys and tried to use her car to escape before a police bullet deflated one of the tyres and they had to abandon it.”

A business centre operator nearby, who gave his name as Mark, said he heard sporadic gun shots and had to lock his shop. “They were shooting into the air and no one was challenging them,” he said. “I bolted my door and lay down on the floor to avoid any stray bullet.”..

Businesses in the area also closed to avoid being victims of the armed robber

The Senate has set up an ad hoc committee to investigate a much speculated robbery incident on Lagos-Benin road which allegedly took place last Tuesday.

The Senate set up the eight-member committee following a motion by Ayogu Eze, and supported by almost half of the Senate, of what he said was an awful robbery incident, which happened at about 4 pm at a section of the Lagos-Benin highway.

According to Mr. Eze, the robbers robbed and raped passengers of the luxury bus and thereafter asked those passengers who had no money on them to lie on one section of the road while the robbers commandeered the driver at gunpoint to drive over them, crushing the victims under his tyres.

"Among those affected were women and children," Mr. Eze told the Senate. "If not checked, this dastardly act may mark the early signs of Nigeria's slide into anarchy."

A gory image of the incident was widely circulated over the internet and published by a national daily last week.

But the Nigeria Police Force's Deputy Public Relations Officer, Yemi Ajayi, told NEXT on Wednesday that the whole report about the incident is vague and that the police could not ascertain that the incident actually occurred.

"We are already investigating the report. We have sent distress signal to the police command in Edo and Ondo States for adequate investigation to the story," he said.

"The investigation is to determine the truth about the whole matter, as we are still puzzled about it because there was no outcry until the picture was circulated on the internet."

Shocked senators

Most of the senators who spoke on the issue said they were shocked at the brutality it showed.

"When I first read about the incident, I couldn't look at the images. When I finally did, I lost appetite for two days," Ibrahim Ida (PDP, Katsina State) said.

Victor Ndoma-Egba (PDP Cross River State), said he has been hoping the incident is a myth since he saw the image.

"If it is true, then we are in a very sad situation," he said. "What I saw cannot be imagined, even in a war situation."

Patrick Osakwe (PDP Delta State) also expressed doubt about the validity of the story.

"The crime is unimaginable and doesn't look real but we have been made to believe that it happened and it brings up a lot of questions," Mr. Osakwe said.

Blame the police and driver

According to reports, the weird robbery incident lasted for more than one hour but while it lasted, no police or law enforcement officer showed up at the scene to rescue the passengers. Ironically, highways in the southern part of Nigeria are dotted with police check points. The Lagos-Benin express road is also one of the busiest in the area.

"Given the fact that this incident happened on a very busy highway, what is the use of having police check points on these highways? What have the police done since then?" Mr. Ida asked. "There has been no reaction from the police. We have to get to the root of this matter, we have to do something."

In the opinion of Umar Hambagda (ANPP Borno State), if Nigerians had principle, some people should have resigned for the negligence exposed by the incidence.

The Senate president and a couple of other senators, however, blamed the driver for being so selfish that he could not sacrifice his life for his passengers numbering about 22.

"The driver is as culpable as the armed robbers," Olorumibe Mamora (AC Lagos State) said.

John Obiora (PDP Anambra State) however, absolved the police of any blame, saying they are underfunded, underpaid and ill motivated to fight crime. He advocated for a state police system, saying "only that way can the police be more responsible for the security of their states."

Besides the investigation, the Senate also observed a one minute silence for the victims of the incident and also urged the police to apply all its tactics and fish out the real suspects who perpetrated the bizarre act.

The committee has 14 days to conclude investigations and report back to the Senate.

The Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Olumuyiwa Adejobi, said in Abeokuta on Wednesday that the committee would be joined by a Deputy Inspector-General of Police among top police officers, who would visit the accident scene near the Babcock University, Ilisan, stretch of the expressway.

Adejobi, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, who said the committee and police officers would visit the robbery accident scene in company with the officers of the state police command, did not, however, say why the committee had decided to visit the site.

Controversy had continued to trail the incident, which occurred on the night of July 31, 2009, but which some people posted on the internet, claiming that it occurred in the later part of February, this year.

The author of the internet version of the story equally narrated how the driver of the luxury (passenger) bus was ordered by the robbers, who had dispossessed the occupants, to run over some of the passengers who were commanded to lie on the road.

In the 2009 accident, a truck driver, one Idahosa, claimed he did not know that the robbers, who struck around 10pm on Friday, July 31, 2009, had placed a barricade on the road, ostensibly to shield some passengers they had ordered to lie on the road.

Idahosa, whose truck, loaded with garri, lost control and crashed into the bush after running over the victims, narrated how he had to climb a tree to avoid the rampaging robbers, who had trailed him and his assistant into the bush.

The committee had summoned the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Ogbonna Onovo, and other police chiefs to appear before it while the driver of the luxury bus, which was coming from the Eastern part of the country to Lagos, and the driver of the truck, whose vehicle inadvertently ran over the distressed passengers, had appeared and testified before the committee.

It is unclear what the committee plans to do with its visit to the site eight months after the incident.