WorldStage Newsonline– The residents of Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital City (FCT) are very familiar with the Bola Boys, as everyone will have one tale or the other to tell about the street and dump site scavengers.
About 90 of them were recently banished by the city’s command of the Nigerian Police Force over allegations of criminal activities.
In the real sense of it, Bola Boys evolved to fill a vacuum created by the malfunction in the city management process, as they are the waste collectors when the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) cannot properly manage garbage disposal within the FCT suburbs.
The dingy-looking ‘Bola Boys’ are usually with sacks fastened to their shoulders and mostly armed with metal sticks which they use to rake out objects from anywhere they spot something that could be valuable to them.
Despite their usefulness, the mostly homeless boys who roam the streets of Abuja are believed to be responsible for vandalising and stealing of private and public properties such as generators, building materials, plastic drums among others.
Under the guise of scavenging for valuables from refuses in neighborhoods across the city, the ‘Bola Boys’ have been fingered in many criminal activities from petty stealing to armed robbery, vandalism of public utilities and other forms criminalities.
Mr Dani Iturbo, a community Chairman in Kabusa, told our correspondent how his community was recently attacked in the night, saying the ‘Bola Boys’ stormed the area in their numbers, attacked a good number of homes which then led to a skirmish.
In fact, Iturbo said the network of the Bola Boys’ operations in Abuja had taken a cult dimension.
“We were so helpless as over 40 armed scavengers attacked this community robbing people of their valuable properties, and molesting young girls at gunpoint,” he said.
“One night, people came in their numbers; over 40 of them. They robbed at least 22 houses successfully. No police or any law enforcement agency came to intervene. We were left to dance to their music. They tricked us somehow. Usually here, if there is something like that, we will come out to defend ourselves by blowing whistles. But, they came with their own whistles while shouting ‘thief, thief’. So we thought the vigilantes were trying to alarm us about a situation. Those who came out were robbed. Because of that tactic, their operation was successful.”
Narrating her own experience, Dame Grace, a Mararaba resident said: “These guys have been around like forever. Each time we tried to get rid of them, they would be arrested, delivered to the police and in a couple of days, they would be roaming the same street again. So, tell me, who is fooling who?
“There was this particular guy that was arrested for stealing irons used to construct gutters. We stopped people in the neighborhood from beating him and handed him over to the police, only for us to see him some days after, threatening to mobilize and deal with us.
“Ever since then, every one of us has learnt to keep our metals and iron away from these guys while those who have cameras monitor them from inside.
“Just last month, my neighbour lost his generator to these guys. How they made away with that generator still marvels everyone. The generator was so big that it will take two grown men to carry it from where it was stationed.
“The other day, it was a caterer who lost almost all her working tools to these heartless boys.
“If this issue is not taken seriously, it may transform to another problem for Nigeria.”
Grace however said that residents had reintroduced what she called ‘Watch your Neighborhood’ to arrest the situation.
A resident of Jikwoyi, Alice Ocho told our correspondent that to allow the “Bola boys” walk about committing crimes was dangerous.
He said they had gone beyond just stealing metals to engaging in petty stealing “and when you confront them, they will tell you they did not take it from your room but outside.”
On his part, Pastor Remijus Ukanwa who resides in Karu village lamented that the boys pillaged his home when he was away on a religious program.
He said: “These evil minded boys do not only steal irons, but they now dig out irons from already built structures.
“I went to church one certain day but when I returned, I discovered that my compound had been ransacked; everywhere was turned upside down. The new chairs my wife bought for her kindergarten class were stolen by the boys and they were over 30 in number.
“If the government doesn’t do something about these criminals parading themselves as dirt disposals, we might just be breeding other elements that will soon tear us apart just as what we are experiencing with Boko Haram and the bandits.”
The FCT Deputy Commissioner of Police, Ben Igwe when he recently led the arrest of 98 scavengers was quoted as saying that the command would deport all identified ‘bola Boys’ to their states of origin.
He said: “Abuja is not for everybody. We have asked them to go where they are supposed to be.
“We are working towards clearing them from the FCT. We will keep doing that and we will not relent.
“We recovered from them several things that they are not supposed to scavenge. They steal properties while claiming to scavenge refuses.
“We have asked them to relocate. Many people have been trooping into the FCT, and some of them are coming with evil intentions. Whenever you see them, let us know.
“We are taking them to court to make sure that justice is given. We have a serious issue now because of threats from so many places.”
Efforts to reach the FCT minister through his SA Media, Mallam Sanni proved abortive as he did not pick calls neither reply text messages.
