Four youths were murdered in the course of a mob action which took place in the Ikorodu area of Lagos State after a created family spread false information.
The lynched land speculators in Ikorodu
Fatai Owoseni, the Commissioner of Police in Lagos, said on Saturday that the police were on the trail of a family which allegedly raised the false alarm that resulted in the killing of 4 persons in Ikorodu.
Owoseni said the family had a fight with another family over an undisclosed matter, stressing that it raised a false alarm that the victims were members of the notorious Badoo cult.
4 persons, who were branded to be members of the notorious Badoo cult group in Adamo area of Ikorodu, were on Friday lynched by residents. It was, however, later discovered that the slain persons were just land speculators.
3 houses, two vehicles and motorcycles were set ablaze in a reprisal attack by colleagues of the slain persons. An unnamed person was said to have started a building project in the area.
Some land speculators reportedly invaded the building site and demanded for royalty from the owner of the building, who refused and they went away with a threat that they were coming back.
True to their threat, they mobilised and returned on Friday but unknown to them, the owner of the building had also mobilised some youths in the area.
A clash was said to have ensued between the land speculators and the residents, forcing them to flee from the site of the building project.
The land speculators were escaping when residents raised the alarm that they were members of the Badoo cult group. It was also gathered that the residents had lied that the slain land speculators had earlier in the day killed a family of four people.
More residents were mobilised and they reportedly chased the land speculators to where they were caught and beaten to stupor, with four of them eventually dying.
The death of the land speculators sparked instant crisis as hoodlums mobilised themselves and invaded Adamo where three houses were burnt. It took the intervention of policemen before the angry hoodlums were dispersed.