The Badoo Menace

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The Badoo Menace

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Their reported criminal acts seem like some surreal scene from the fantasy world of horror fiction. But the blood-chilling activities of a strange cult group known as Badoo, operating largely in the Ikorodu area of Lagos State is a sad reality. Members of this murderous confraternity are not content simply to kill innocent citizens or dispossess them of their property. Rather, they smash the heads of   their victims with heavy stones and soak up their blood and brain substances in handkerchiefs that are reportedly sold to those who use them for ritual purposes.The satanic gang has been wreaking havoc and has taken no less than 26 lives at will in isolated communities within and around Ikorodu since 2016, but their barbarity has grown in intensity and impunity over the last few weeks.About three weeks ago, the Badoo cult members reportedly murdered a pastor by smashing his head in the Lasuwon area of First Gate in Ikorodu while also killing a woman and her children in the Adamo area of the community. In a disturbing development, the cult demonstrated that its savagery may not be limited to Ikorodu alone as they attacked two churches in Owode Onirin area of the state, killing a woman, Iya Dabira, her nine-month old baby, Dabira, and a one year-old boy, Ayomide, utilising their beastly methods.Feeling vulnerable and apparently losing faith in the capacity of the security agencies to adequately protect them, residents in the affected and neighbouring communities have taken their fate in their hands by resorting to self-help. During the week, two suspected members of the group were caught and set ablaze by angry mobs in Igbo-Oluwo Estate, Ikorodu, and Ogijo, a border town in Ogun State. They were reportedly caught naked by vigilante groups in the dead of night with liquid substances believed to be engine oil rubbed on their bodies and armed with heavy stones. It is estimated that over the last week, no less than six persons suspected to be Badoo members have been lynched in Ikorodu.Unfortunately, the resort to mob justice has its own deleterious drawbacks. For one, it is so easy for innocent citizens to be killed on the basis of mere suspicion. This was probably the case with one Paul Chinedu, alias Mc Think Twice, who was reportedly killed along with two of his friends, as suspected Badoo members, on Oju-Emuren Street at Odogunyan in Ikorodu. Again, if those lynched by enraged mobs are indeed members of the cult, the security agencies are denied the opportunity of extracting useful information from them that could help in exterminating the cult. Even more dangerously, the practice of jungle justice draws the entire community down to the beastly level of the cultists, further devaluing the worth of human life.Given the level of funding and equipping of the police and other security agencies by the Governor Akinwunmi Ambode administration, there is no excuse for the rampant cases of kidnapping and murderous cultism, particularly in the Epe/Ikorodu axis of the state. It is time for the security agencies to be more proactive as well as work with better synergy to curb crime in the state.We equally urge the newly established Neighbourhood Safety Corps in Lagos State to quickly settle down and make its protective presence felt across communities in the state. While we commend the arrest of 138 Badoo suspects in a joint operation by security agencies in the state, we caution that each case be meticulously investigated so that the innocent can be set free and only those adjudged as having genuine cases to answer are brought before the law.The Badoo menace is another manifestation of the excessive materialism of our society and the readiness of the youth in particular to accumulate wealth by all means, no matter how devilish. It must be nipped in the bud now. Source: Nation

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