Two men were stoned to death in the Sabo, Yaba area of Lagos State after being apprehended by youths for allegedly robbing a resident of his phones.
The alleged robbers attacked a 79-year-old man, Pa Emmanuel Thomas, in his apartment on McNeil Road, around 4am on Saturday January 18th 2014.
According to reports, the men beat up a guest of Thomas demanding he gave them money.
Thomas said, “I was in my room and a guest was in my sitting room. But because there was no electricity, I opened the main doors for cross ventilation. A few minutes later, two young guys barged into the house.
“One of them slapped my female guest who was in the sitting room and snatched her phone and charger, the other guy told me to give him all my money and I told him all I had was N30 which was kept inside my Bible. They also snatched my telephone and wristwatch.”
Prior to the robbery, residents in the area spotted strange faces of the alleged armed robbers in the area which aroused suspicion.
One resident said:
“Around 3.30am, I was returning from a carnival when I noticed two strange faces on Little Road. When the guys saw me, they pretended to be fixing an abandoned bus and were talking as if they were a bus driver and his conductor waiting for daybreak.
When I walked past, they continued to roam the street, so I informed one of my friends and together, we tailed them. Suddenly, they entered Pa Thomas’s house and then I heard the elderly man screamed for help.
We quickly surrounded the house and dared the robbers to come out. When they saw that they were trapped, one of them jumped the fence into the next compound which is on Little Road. I was able to arrest one, while the other one escaped.”
It was also learnt that an hour later, the second robber, who hid inside another compound, was exposed by a resident and was also handed over to the irate youths.
The youths in the area striped the two men naked and beat them to pulp. While still alive, the youths dragged them and dumped at the end of Herbert Macauley Way, about 200 metres from the Sabo Police Division.
According to reports, passers-by pelted the alleged robbers with stones and by the time police arrived around 9am they were already dead.
Asked why they didn’t involve the police when the alleged robbers were caught, a resident said, “On that day, there was a serious crisis at a neighbouring community, Iwaya, and most of the policemen from Sabo Division had diverted all their attention to the area.
“Also, these robbers usually hang around a brothel located on a neighbouring street. If we hand them over to the police, they will be released and come back to terrorise us.”
Another resident said, “It was not our intention to kill the robbers, we only beat them up and dumped them by the road side. However, when passers-by learnt of what they had done, many of them picked up rocks and stoned them to death.”
