There was pandemonium early Saturday at the Agege area of Lagos state, western Nigeria as some free train passengers unleashed terror on passers-by, bus drivers and traders close to the railway line.
The passengers, who mounted the top of a moving train, pelted their victims with stones, sticks and other objects.
Some of the traders sustained injury, their goods were destroyed just as commercial vehicles were vandalised.
A man who said he was on the way to work was hit by a stone in the head.
“We never had any inkling that this kind of an incident would occur today. In fact, we didn’t have a problem with these passengers even though they always hang illegally on the train,” Tayo Oni, a commercial driver, who plies Agege and the Toll-Gate area of Ogun state, told P.M. NEWS.
A trader, who gave her name as Bisola Adewunmi, said she was displaying her wares when a stone landed on her waist.
In the attempt to run into safety, she kicked the basket containing the fruits she was to sell.
“See my leg. I hit my right leg on an iron as I ran from the scene,” she said.
The owner of a tricycle with the windshield shattered, told P.M. NEWS that he had just brought some passengers from the Abule-Egba area of the state to Agege when the incident happened.
He said he jumped out of his tricycle to avoid the attack by the passengers.
“They had been attacking people in the past, but it was not like this. While riding on the train, they would sometimes throw empty cans of drinks at people, but today’s attack is serious.
“How do I find the money to buy another windshield now?” He asked.
The plot by the free train passengers to attack people in the area began on Thursday, when officers of the Nigeria Police stormed the area and arrested some of them.
As the raid started, a driver in the park told P.M. NEWS that the free train passengers overwhelmed the police and this forced some members of the Oodua Peoples Congress, a grassroot vigilante group, to assist the police.
“The passengers must have been incensed that we were excited at their arrest and they decided to attack us today,” a food vendor in the area explained.
The drivers, tricycle riders and traders vowed to prepare themselves to avenge the attack later on Saturday on the return of the train.
The Divisional Police Officer of the Railway Police Station was not in the office when our correspondent visited, but a police officer confirmed the incident.
He said some officers witnessed the incident and were in contact with the state police command to help forestall any breakdown of law and order.
In February, 2013, the Lagos State House of Assembly had passed a motion instructing the men of the Nigeria police as well as other uniformed men in the state to arrest and detain all illegal passengers hanging on trains in the state.
According to the House, it had become worrisome for passengers to continue to damn the risks involved in the dangerous practice of jumping on trains while the trains are in motion.
The week the motion was passed, the police swung into action arresting some of the illegal passengers. They however stopped barely two weeks later.
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