A COLOUR calendar depicting the gruesome vigilante killing of a suspected armed robber hit the streets of Lagos on Thursday and was enjoying brisk sales, witnesses said. Shoppers at the popular Oshodi market jostled with each other to buy the calendar, bearing a picture of the killing on Wednesday last week, when vigilantes crucified and then set ablaze the suspected robber, Akanni Arikuyeri, along with two other alleged accomplices. The suspect was seized and nailed to a cross by members of the banned anti-crime group, the Odua People’s Congress (OPC), after they had paraded him through the streets of the run-down Lagos district of Mushin. They stripped him naked, bound his legs with ropes and nailed him to the cross. He was then burned alive along with the two alleged accomplices. Since the beginning of this month, at least a dozen suspected armed robbers have been summarily killed in several parts of the crime-infested metropolis of about 10 million people. Lagos police arrested Ganiyu Adams, the wanted leader of the most hardline faction of the OPC, on Wednesday. – AFP
Thursday August 23, 2001