Post by Danny Angbashim (@db_angbashim)

The GenZs could be forgiven to think that violent armed robbery had never really been such an issue in this country seeing that reports of robberies are far and wide in their generation. It has nothing to do with the efficiency or effectiveness of the Nigerian police.

Rather as the Nigerian society is evolving the criminals too are evolving; they've evolved (or is it diversified) into more lucrative but less risky crimes like advance fee fraud alias yahoo-yahoo and kidnapping for ransom.

Twenty or so years ago violent armed robbery was as prevalent on our highways and residential quarters as kidnapping is today. Perhaps even more.
Howlings of distressed neighbours once woke me up as their block of flats across the fence was being violently robbed middle of the night. I called the police operations room to alert them but the person that picked denied that it was a police number!

I have driven into live robbery operations in Enugu on at least two occasions; one at about 8 pm on Edinburgh Road, another about 7:30 am after Ozalla along the Enugu - PH Expressway. Somehow after some momentary confusion and hesitation I slammed the accelerator and drove past.

Those days once there's a dearth of oncoming vehicles from the opposite direction for a few minutes it's a signal that a robbery operation was underway in front. That I have experienced severally.

I remember one incident around Oji River junction along the Enugu - Onitsha highway. We ran into distraught motorists who had just been robbed. Their story was as distressing as it was comical. On noticing that there were no vehicles coming from the Awka end they correctly suspected a robbery operation ahead so all vehicles coming from Enugu end stopped. But the daredevil robbers were smarter. Once they were done with the first spot they commandeered one of the vehicles and headed for Enugu direction. Of course once they got to where the Enugu vehicles were parked they quickly dashed out and ordered everyone to lie down.

The puzzle no one could unravel was that police patrol vehicles would show up at the scenes when the robbers were done and had escaped into the bush.

Looking back I can testify that God's promise in Psalm 91:7 that "A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you" has come true for me repeatedly.

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