Posted by By Olaide Adekunle on
Robbers who specialise in snatching phones and bags have devised a new strategy. They now pretend as conductors and hang by the doors of public buses.
Robbers who specialise in snatching phones and bags have devised a new strategy. They now pretend as conductors and hang by the doors of public buses.
P.M.News gathered that once the bus is loaded and about to take off, the robber that hangs without the driver knowing, snatches whatever he can lay his hands on, particularly phones and bags from passengers by the door.
According to an eyewitness who is a commuter bus driver, Mr. Akeem Shobayo; 'the incident is now very rampant especially in the evening when they would not be identified by anyone.
'Those who hang by the bus to rob don't do it in the afternoon for fear of being identified, but operate at night', he said. Shobayo also blamed the passengers who take sides with the robbers in the name of being helped by the drivers. 'The passengers even abuse us when we ask them not to hang, thinking that we don't like to help them to their destination', he explained.
Similarly Bibire explained to P.M.News that 'the act is actually aided by passengers because whenever a driver asks them not to hang, they blame us for being selfish but they are now realizing why we were doing that. 'Drivers don't take note at times that they are by the door, but passengers do.'
He therefore advised passengers to alert drivers as soon as they see anyone hanging by the door, especially when he's not the bus conductor.
'Those hoodlums hang around at the motor parks, wait for buses to load and allow the driver to take off before hanging. Only the passengers can help by alerting us to drive them away', he said.
Speaking with a passenger, Mrs. Akinpelu Toyin, whose bag was snatched at Agege Motor park yesterday, P.M.News gathered it was a big surprise to her because she was pleading for the robber to be allowed to hang.
'You wouldn't believe that this driver asked him to go down but I pleaded for him to be allowed to hang without knowing that my bag was his target,' she said.
While explaining how it happened, she said, 'he agreed to go down, but asked the driver to slow down for him, my bag was snatched before the bus could slow down'.