The Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives,
Mr Femi Gbajabiamila, on Monday visited the sites of damaged public
and private facilities in his Surulere 1 Federal Constituency in
Lagos.
The Speaker, whose visit came after the looting spree that took
place in Surulere following the reactions to the #EndSARS Lekki
tollgate shootings, addressed the residents at Shitta Roundabout,
Surulere, visited affected shops and the Bode Thomas Police
Station.
In his address to residents and traders who gathered at the
Shitta area of Surulere, Gbajabiamila assured his constituents that
the former anti-robbery team codenamed SARS has been totally
disbanded by the president.
“You have all spoken, and the government heard you loud and
clear. While in Abuja where you sent me to represent you, I heard
all your complaints. All that happened in Lekki is what we have all
seen and it is being investigated, but you see the social media has
its good and bad until it’s fully unravelled that we can know the
next step to take.”
“On the issue of EndSARS, you should all know that I am there
for you as your representative. It’s all you want we are going to
do. EndSARS cannot come up again, because there is no more SARS.
You see all that happened at Adeniran Ogunsanya and Bode Thomas, I
can boast that it was not carried out by children from Surulere, we
all know they came from outside Surulere because I know my own
people. Surulere shall continue to prosper by the grace of God”,
Gbajabiamila said.
The Speaker proceeded from Shitta to Adeniran Ogunsanya Shopping
Mall where he spoke to many business owners who gave various
accounts of how the damages done to their businesses were
executed.
According to a business owner at AOS Mall, Mr. Oladimeji
Ogunniyi, the looters carried out the ugly exercise despite the
darkness in the mall.
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“The looting of this mall started precisely 7:45am till 4pm, so
what we did was that we advised the security in the mall to off the
light so that they will be operating in darkness, thinking there
may be restraint.
“You can see blood (stains) still on the ground. Immediately the
mall lights were put off, they forced themselves into the glass and
they sustained degrees of injuries. All the looting was done in the
dark. We have over 100 shops in the mall and none was spared.
“All the items in my shops were taken. This is the only mall
that gives indigenous and local entrepreneurs opportunity to
operate, except for Shoprite, KFC and few others that are
multinationals. In each shop, we have at least three staff,”
Ogunniyi said.
A textile shop owner at Adeniran Ogunsanya Mall, Mrs. Fausat
Shomade, told the Speaker that she has lost her source of
livelihood.
“We don’t have any other thing that we eat except from this
shop. This shop is loaded to the full of textile materials. It was
only this few that we were able to recover from the police
station,” she said tearfully.
The Speaker also visited damaged shops on Bode Thomas, Surulere,
and Bode Thomas Police Station where he was received by the
Commander of Area C Police Command, Lagos, Tijani Fatai; the
Divisional Police Officer of Bode Thomas, Ibrahim Fasesan and the
Divisional Police Officer of Surulere, Adebowale Adeoya.
The Speaker sighted recovered items, including Shoprite trolleys
at the Bode Thomas Police Station.
Gbajabiamila commended the officers of the Nigerian Police Force
for restoring law and order in the area.