Lagos | Friday
VIGILANTES in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos crucified and then set ablaze a suspected robber, in the most grisly demonstration of violent vigilantism, the newspaper Vanguard reported on Friday.
Akanni Arikuyeri, a suspected armed robber, was seized and nailed to a cross by the members of the anti-crime vigilante group, the Odua Peoples Congress (OPC), late on Wednesday, the paper said.
Caught in a bus park close to the international airport, Arikuyeri was then hoisted onto an improvised cross and paraded through the streets in the nearby Mushin district of the city before being covered in petrol and set ablaze, the newspaper said.
Two alleged accomplices, caught with Arikuyeri in the bus park, were also burned alive.
Anti-crime vigilante groups have sprung up all over Nigeria in recent years as popular faith has fallen in the ability and determination of the police to tackle crime. The OPC was set up in 1995 to campaign for more autonomy for the ethnic Yoruba people of the southwest of Nigeria.
But in 1999 it started getting involved in vigilante activities and social control, hunting down suspected robbers and disciplining people it alleged were social miscreants.
The vigilantes who killed Arikuyeri and the alleged accomplices were said to be members of the most violent faction of the OPC, led by a wanted man, Ganiyu Adams, the Vanguard reported.
Adams, who was declared a wanted man in 1999 over riots in which hundreds of people died, has despite his outlaw status made a series of recent public appearances.
In an interview at one appearance last Friday he denied that the OPC was a violent organisation. – AFP