Ajah crisis: Chief, others in police detention

The last has not been heard about the fight, which erupted among three factions of land speculators, at the Lekki/Ajah area of Lagos State on Saturday.
Six people allegedly died during the clash on Saturday.
The clash continued on Monday and led to the arrest of one of the chiefs in the area.
It was gathered that sick and tired of the constant fighting, a team of policemen had arrested several of the hoodlums, believed to be at the centre of the storm.
The police in the state had earlier on Sunday arrested a popular chief in the area, who was said to be the financier of one of the warring factions.
On Saturday it was gathered that about three factions of thugs, the Olumegbon boys, Ajah boys and Ilaje boys, clashed over what had been described by eyewitnesses as battle for supremacy over motor parks.
Another version claimed that the thugs, as usual, were fighting over land acquisition and ownership.
Eyewitnesses accounts claimed that on Saturday morning, the thugs agreed to meet at a certain area of Lekki/Ajah, at about 6am.
By the time police got the information and raced to the scene, the battle had been fought, won and lost.
It was gathered that scene of the fight was like a river of blood.
The wounded were rushed to the hospital, while the dead were taken away by their respective factions.
The Olumegbon boys were said to have lost three men, the Ilaje boys lost one, while the Ajah boys also recorded the death of one man.
The grieving Olumegbon boys were said to have carried the corpses of their dead colleagues to the palace of Chief Olumegbon.
The reason for the present clash was vague, but there had always being an ongoing feud between the three factions.
The factions came to be years ago, after the leaders of the factions started fighting over parcels of land in the area. Apparently determined to win the land acquisition war at all cost, the leaders had gone to different parts of the Lagos to hire thugs, who would always be ready to fight.
These thugs metamorphosed into land speculators and soon had different motor parks.
For peace to reign, the Olumegbon, Ilaje and Ajah boys ought not to trespass into one another’s boundary at motor parks.
A faction, going into another motor park to collect toll, had often been the cause of their clashes, if not over land.
The policemen had on Monday afternoon brought the arrested chief to his Ajah Roundabout home for a search.
When the cops invaded the hideouts Chief Olumegbon’s thugs, there was pandemonium.
An eyewitness said: “When the police went to the chief house, they saw many hoodlums around the place and they started to arrest them.”
Attempt by the policemen to arrest the hoodlums was met with stiff resistance from the thugs.
The policemen in an attempt to stop the boys from bolting, shot sporadically into the air, causing panic.
Lagos State Police Command spokesperson, Ngozi Braide, could not confirm the arrest of the chief and his thugs since she was yet to get the facts of the case.
Briade promised to get back to our correspondent as soon as she found out the situation from the Area Commander in charge of Area J.