Bandits wreak havoc on Ogun community

Rsidents of a community in Ogun State are living in fear following its invasion by hoodlums between late Saturday night and early hours of Sunday. Besides private homes, five churches were also said to have been raided. GBENGA ADERANTI visited the community and reports.

It was 12 noon, but the Baptist area of Olori/Otun, Ifo Local Government Area, Ogun State, was like a ghost town. The entire area looked desolate save a group of women who were having a prayer session. Three days earlier, the community had been invaded by some foreigners. The incident unsettled the residents of the community as they had never witnessed that magnitude of attack in a single night.

Neither private homes nor places of worship were spared by the invaders, who ensured that they inflicted pain and anguish on their victims before departing. Many of the residents were yet to overcome the trauma generated by the incident when our correspondent visited the community on Tuesday.

As a mark of the severity of the attack, virtually none of the homes attacked had repaired their damaged belongings when our correspondent visited. It was said that James’ home was the first to be visited on Saturday night, and the hoodlums did not only damage their property, they also made away with some items.

As at Tuesday afternoon, the destroyed burglaries were yet to be fixed while the torn window nets were yet to be attended to.

James is the presiding pastor of Faith in God Prophetic Ministry. On Tuesday afternoon when our reporter visited the community, his wife was seen with other women who had just finished a prayer session.

While the reporter sought to take Mrs Jame’s picture, Mrs James, however, politely declined an attempt to take her photograph, saying it could be counter-productive.

James, who moved into the community about 14 years ago, disclosed that it was the first time they would witness such an incident. Still traumatised by the incident, she explained that the hoodlums came into their home around 1am on Sunday.

She said: “I heard some noise around our window, and I tapped my husband to check. He saw the armed robbers. Before we knew it, they had used their knife to tear the net and used a hand to destroy our window; using the iron bar and big stone they came with to destroy the burglary.”

While the hoodlums took away everything they came with, the reporter sighted the big stone used in destroying James’ burglary in the compound. “This is the big stone they smashed on our burglary,” his wife said.

If help had come, the destruction and trauma the family is currently going through would have been minimised. She recalled that while the hoodlums were destroying the burglary, she and her husband were shouting for help that never came,

She said: “We shouted Ole, Ole (thief, thief) repeatedly but nobody came out to help or offer any form of resistance.

“This emboldened the hoodlums. They took all our phones and other personal belongings.”

Our correspondent gathered that rather than respond to the calls for help, many residents started sending messages to inform one another that hoodlums were operating in the community.

One of such messages obtained by our correspondent reads: “Urgent attention. Armed robbers are presently in the community. Please, everyone should be on the alert. They are robbing now.

“I am presenting (sic) in my hideous (sic) with cutlass. They almost killed Mr James o.

“They have gained entry from the bush. They’re Fulani people o.

‘Pastor Moses’ house is greatly attacked. They’ve seriously beaten Mr James ooh.

“Don’t just read and pass o. This happened in our community, Igbeyinadun of Olori/Otun this morning.”

The Nation learnt that many members of the community came after the bandits had left.

Despite the presence of the Ogun State community security outfit, Social Orientation and Safety Corps (SOSAFE CORPS) in the adjoining communities, this part of Otun community had neither day nor night guards. The incident has forced the community to arrange for its security.

The woman who is probably in her late 50s or early 60s said that since this particular incident, she had not recovered.

Reliving her experience in a chat with our correspondent, she said: “The shock was so much on me. We saw five of them, three entered inside with big cutlasses, a dagger, very sharp ones, and guns. Three entered inside, two others were outside as sentries.”

She explained that those who attacked the house were Fulani because “by looking at them, they did not cover their faces, and the way they spoke.”

She therefore, appealed to the government to provide security for the community. “The government should come to our rescue. We need security. SO SAFE does not cover this area.”

The hoodlums were not satisfied. As soon as they left the premises of Faith in God Prophetic Ministry, they headed for another church in the community, the Celestial Church, Ileri Oluwakiye Parish.

For the shell-shocked 70-plus-old Evangelist Kehinde Moses, the Prophet- in-Charge of the Celestial Church, Ileri Oluwakiye Parish, things have not been the same since his church was attacked on that early morning of Sunday February 22, 2026.

It was an instance of once bitten twice shy when The Nation visited the church around 1pm on Tuesday. One of the pastors, David, said the shepherd was sleeping, having patrolled the area throughout the night to secure his church.

“Baba is sleeping. He did patrol throughout the night. Since the incident happened he has stopped sleeping at night,” said David.

Before now, it was not the practice, but the Sunday attack has changed the configuration.

Looking exhausted, Prophet Moses, who confirmed that he had been staying in the community for the past 25 years, said there had never been a security breach until the recent one.

According to the prophet, “when they (hoodlums) came, they met two of the church members outside having bible study that night.

“Suddenly, they issued orders to the two boys inside the church auditorium, but the boys refused to answer them, thinking that they were passersby.

“Suddenly they brought out a cutlass, and a dagger, and marched them into the church.”

The event that followed left a sour taste in the mouth of other members of the church. The boys were beaten with machetes and swords; harassed and threatened before their belongings were taken from them.

Inside the church, they met a young, heavily pregnant lady.

“The cry of the pregnant woman who came to pray in the church woke me up. The hoodlums were beating her mercilessly. It never crossed my mind that such “My initial feeling was that it was her husband who came to church to harass her. I challenged myself to stop where I was sleeping on the altar.

“As I made an attempt to stand up from where I was sleeping, one of them just put a dagger to my head, and told me to go back to sleep.To my chagrin, I later found that they had locked all the doors leading to the church auditorium.”

Despite the Baba’s pleading, however, the hoodlums continued to beat the young woman. “It was a serious beating with a machete demanding that she should release the password of her phone. By then, they had collected her phone.”

The explanation that the phone was not hers attracted more beating as they were bent on opening the phone to transfer the money in her account, The Nation gathered.

According to the Cele prophet, the bandits were four in number. While one of them held him down with a dagger, the two others were with the girl making frantic efforts to get the password of her phone.

“The other one was this Baba (pointing to one of the pastors of the church). They were infuriated that at his age he had no phone, and they rewarded him with serious beating.”

The Nation gathered that the hoodlums did not limit their evil act to beating and stealing from the members; they also desecrated the altar.

“One of them followed one of the clerics to the altar with a threat to stab him right there. While this was going on, they continued beating the pregnant woman unabated.”

Out of sheer bravery and luck, the septuagenarian said he took a risk, when one of the bandits was distracted. “I pushed the door, and luckily for me, I ran out. One of the bandits followed me.

“Not sure of where I was running to or what I was about to do, he ran back and spoke a strange language to others that they should leave the church auditorium,” he said.

But for the brave escape of a septuagenarian from the church auditorium, things could have gone worse for the badly battered pregnant woman who, as the hoodlums were leaving, continued to follow them, insisting that they should return the phone because it was not hers.”

Meanwhile, before the old man managed to escape, they had seized the cross on the altar and smashed it on the head of one of the pastors named David. It was not until three days later that the cross was found in the bush very close to the Celestial Church.

The old man said it never crossed his mind that the community would experience such.

He said: “In the last 25 years that I have been here, I never for once locked the door of the church. In fact, it never occurred to me that the church door had any lock until that Saturday night incident when the hoodlums locked us out.”

Pregnant woman under attack

Still in shock, another victim of the attack, a heavily pregnant woman named Testimony, who had come to the Celestial Church in the community, was beaten black and blue while all her belongings were taken away from her.

Still looking exhausted, she took time to show the reporter the marks on different parts of her body as a result of the ferocious beating she received from the daredevil marauders. Her consolation is that she is still alive.

As if she had a premonition of the danger lurking around the corner, she said she had lay in the church auditorium but sleep would not come even though it was around 12 midnight. “Instead of sleeping, I was just rolling on the floor of the church auditorium. I felt it was probably my first time sleeping on a bare floor, which was why it was difficult for me to sleep.

“Less than 20 minutes after a nap, somebody just tapped me and said stand up and press your password.”

She said initially, she thought it was a prank, as they did not cover their faces, and there was light.

“I asked them: press my password as how?”

The question infuriated one of the bandits. “He just brought out a big sword and started hitting me with it. He kept saying ‘press your password’ as he continued to hit me with his sword.

“The beating continued for a long time until one of the women peeped from where she was in a part of the building.

“While this was going on, it never occurred to me that they were hoodlums.

“There and then, he dragged me on the floor with the shorts I was wearing.

“The force with which he pulled me made the knickers to tear. That was when I realised that they were truly robbers.”

According to her, as this was going on, two of the robbers were with her, inflicting pains on her body while other members of the gang were in another corner of the church where they were beating David, another member of the church.

“The phone fell and rolled over to the leg of one of the members of the gang. They kept beating me and kept asking me to press the password.

“As they were beating me, I kept shouting where is Daddy, where is Daddy, no be me get the phone.”

According to her, a loud noise from one of the exits of the church auditorium made them stop beating her as they made to pursue the person that had gone out of the church.

“I later discovered that it was the prophet who escaped from the church auditorium. When they could not meet Daddy, they came back into the church, spoke a foreign language and left.

“They took the iron cross on the altar and smashed it on my head. They spoke a foreign language, probably Hausa.”

The Nation gathered the gang members switching between English and Hausa languages.

Narrating his encounter with the hoodlums, David, a pastor in the Celestial church, said he had slept when the gang members attacked the church in the early hours of that Sunday morning.

According to him, it was the crying of Testimony the pregnant woman that woke him up.

He said: “Initially, I thought she was about to give birth or her husband came to harass her. But it was the commotion between members of the church and one of the hoodlums that woke me up.”

He said as soon as he woke up, the attention of the hoodlum was drawn to him

“I just heard ‘bring your phone.’ I said I no get phone. Out of annoyance, one of them tried to stab me right there on the altar, but I dodged it.

“He now said how you go be like this you no get phone?. He tried to stab me again, and I dodged it again.”

Fortunately, it was about the same time the prophet in charge escaped from the church auditorium, which probably caused fear among them, and they left the auditorium.

David, like Testimony, said there and then, they switched to the Hausa language and they left the auditorium. The residents and landlords eventually came, but the gang members had left the scene.

“Night guards have started working here. In fact, they were around last night,” Prophet Moses confirmed.

He said he had not been sleeping since the incident, and confirmed that the phones of his church members were collected.

‘They threatened to kill Seven-day-old baby’

“One of them held my seven-day old baby up with one hand, the other put a sword to the head of my other boy, threatening to waste them if I failed to cooperate. I had no option but to release the pin of my husband’s account to them and they transferred N350,000 from his account,” relived Mrs Lawal Basira, a mother who had just put to bed, while narrating her experience with the hoodlums on that Sunday morning.

According to her, earlier on Saturday, she had taken her child to church for christening. Unknown to her, other people had other plans for her. In the early hours of Sunday, a gang visited her house while she and other members of her household were still savouring the joy of christening their new baby.

According to her, the house was still filled with family members who came all the way from Ibadan, Oyo State to celebrate the newborn baby.

She said that early Sunday morning when the gang members arrived, three of them came into the house through the kitchen while one of them mounted a post at the back.

Unlike the church incident, her house had no burglary, and her family had no reason to be afraid because since they moved into the community eight years ago they had not had any incident.

“They arrived here around 2am. We were about to sleep. They entered through the kitchen. It was the sitting room they first entered before they came for those of us in the bedroom.

“Meanwhile, they had collected all the belongings of the people they met sleeping in the sitting room. They were all dressed in black attire. They did not use any hoods.”

According to her, the bandits came well prepared, with different weapons, including swords, knives, scissors and many other dangerous weapons.

He revealed that her household was subjected to serious torture, the most troubling being when they threatened to kill the new baby and her four-year-old boy.

“They said if we failed to cooperate, they would kill my children, and my husband. They kept on searching the house and collecting all the cash available.

“Shortly after, they told my husband to surrender his phone. They asked him to transfer all the money in his account.”

Basira’s husband was reluctant to do this, but when they put the sword to his neck, Basira said she quickly gave them the password.

“They lifted my 7- day- old baby with one hand and threatened to waste him if I failed to cooperate.

“They did not spare those who came to visit us. They collected all their money with mine and made away with them.

“They made sure they collected all the money we had at home, even the ones I had been collecting since I gave birth to my son.”

She revealed that while it would be difficult to put a figure to the amount of money the gang members made away with, the sum of N350,000 was transferred from her husband’s account.

The most painful aspect of the whole episode is the fact that the family does not have the record of the christening as all the phones that were used in recording the event were taken away by the hoodlum.

Making light of the incident, Basira said the robbers did not spare them anything as they took the radio, torch, MP3, caps, clothes and wristwatches.

“After the whole episode, they locked us inside and bolted,” she said.

She added that since the sad incident, the family has not been able to sleep and had been living from hand to mouth. The damaged window had also not been repaired because she said they have no money to do that right now.

“We don’t have any money to do anything right now. To even eat is a big challenge,’ Basira lamented.

Helpless community

The Nation gathered that before the unfortunate incident, the security presence in the community was zero. They neither had night guards nor the So-Safe security outfit of Ogun State.

One of the residents explained that the community had not witnessed such a daring attack. “Since I came here about twenty-something years ago, I have had no cause to be scared, though there have been pockets of burglary here and there. There had never been this kind of vicious attack on this community as experienced on Saturday night and early hours of Sunday.”

He explained that the police station was far from the community; a lacuna the attackers exploited to the fullest.

Source: https://thenationonlineng.net/survivors-narrate-ordeal-after-bandits-attack-on-ogun-churches-household/