by Alexander O. Onukwue

How did a group of youth have the freedom to become deadly terror agents to the residents of Ikorodu?

They are not new, despite only recently occupying the news. Badoo has become an urgent concern owing to the fatal retaliations that have come from the attempt by some to put them in check, leading to the deaths of innocent people. It has taken these deaths to stir action from the Lagos State command of the Nigeria Police, but the Lagos State Government, until now, has largely left this group to their devices without any substantial efforts at correcting the menace.

The latest statement to come from Akinwunmi Ambode on Thursday, July 6 was that there was intelligence pointing towards connivance between some local chiefs and Badoo. He has promised that his administration will flush out every member of the cult.

Ambode’s passing of the blame to local chiefs is not smart disaster management, but an expression of the disaster that has been his management of the Badoo crisis. The Governor over the past year has pursued an aggressive sack-and-claim in communities like Otodo Gbame, where the residents have been peaceful and managing to sustain themselves without being of any harm to their environment and surrounding. He has pursued and raided them at unjustifiable hours, meting out inhumane treatments on them. It has taken a definitive statement on the non-constitutionality of the demolitions to turn off his caterpillars’ ignitions.

But Badoo had been reigning on all along in Ikorodu, undisturbed. While the Government went about its ‘Lagos at 50’ extravaganzas, the youth of such communities who have for long been disillusioned by the broader inequalities in the metropolis and the big events for which they are not included, have kept themselves busy wit negative innovations that cause no positive disruption other than tears, sorrow and blood.

The plan for Lagos is supposedly to make it a mega-city, where every part will be a choice place to visit peacefully. However, the slow reaction of the Ambode Government to the Badoo menace has made Ikorodu a definite no-go area. Motorists and drivers from other parks in Lagos known for their own ‘craze’ are avoiding Ikorodu right now, not to talk of general members of the public.

It would be in the Lagos State Government’s interest to get to the immediate root of this problem, and blaming local chiefs as accomplices isn’t going to do that. Rather, taking responsibility for its failures in addressing the gaps that led to the acceptance of anti-social behaviour is the only way. If Ambode can aggressively pursue vulnerable people in order to build a mega city, he must address the vulnerability of the Ikorodu people whom his neglect has exposed to the aggression of the Badoo cult.

Editor