Like Ajegunle, Like Mararaba Gurku, Community Where Residents Sleep With Eyes Open

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Mararaba Gurku is a settlement along Abuja Keffi highway in Nasarawa State mostly occupied by low income earners. It is an example of a slum and typical of what people living in simple popular Ajegunle in Lagos live with.

Residents of Mararaba Gurku in Nassarawa State are complaining of increase in armed robbery cases and other social vices. The area is an example of urban slum located along Abuja-Keffi express way in Karu local government area. It is estimated that this settlement has a rough population estimate of over three million people who are mostly low income earners and civil servants working of the lower cadre working in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Others include trader, prostitutes and of course criminals. Mararaba Gurku is best known for its local setting depicted in bad roads, violence and other criminal activities like prostitutions, illicit drugs users, alcoholic joints, robbery and other societal ills.

A resident, Chinedu Okegbuike, who spoke with LEADERSHIP Sunday said, “Right now, we sleep with one eye open. Thieves strike at any time of the day by knocking on gates the way visitors would and when you open, they will point their guns and collect any money they can lay their hands on. They have visited me thrice and on each occasion, I gave them 10,000, 8,000 and 5,000 naira respectively. The last one they came was in the morning when my wife was getting the children ready for school and I was still in bed; my brother opened the gate for them and when they came in, they gently told them to call me or collect the money for them as if they gave me some money to keep for them. We have reported it to the police several times, but no one has been arrested.

Another resident, who has been robbed a couple of times, is Mrs Dorcas Tumkat, an indigene of Plateau State. She had lived there for nine years. According to her, “Armed robbery started a few years back because when I moved here to be with my husband, things were better; the place was not as choked up as it is now. Our house has been attacked three times with one of our neighbors wounded in the process because he wanted to fight them. One of them stabbed him with a big cutlass. The thieves are young boys who come in groups so that residents cannot even defend themselves. Sometimes, they carry food they see in the kitchen. At one time, they visited my neighbour and ate the food they had just prepared for dinner as well as the bread the husband bought. Our fear is that the day they will come and not get anything, they are likely to rape our daughters or kill somebody. The police won’t do anything even if you report to them. We even suspect the police of connivance with them sometimes, because how can a thief come to your house in broad daylight and ask for money and walk out with impunity? They always warn us that if we shout, they will go and come back and kill us and nothing will happen. When they come in the night, it is the worst because of lack of electricity, so, everybody’s generator will be on and because of the noise, they take their time and do anything they want and go unchallenged”, she narrated.

Although the chief of Mararaba Gurku, HRH Gambo Allayayi said he is not liable to talk on the issue, a member of the palace stated that there is no town or society without thieves, but stated that in their own case, the state government is doing everything in its power to stop the crime.

A police officer who doesn’t want his name in print told LEADERSHIP Sunday saying, “We are aware of the increase in crime, but the truth is that, most of it is committed by young boys living in the area who are mostly drug addicts. They do it just   to get a little amount of money for their addiction. Even when we arrest them, we end up releasing them because how many will you send to prison? Most times, their parents come to bail them out and then they will continue again. We encourage this neighborhood vigilante. Besides, the police don’t have enough men to police the whole of mararaba; the place is big and houses are built without proper planning. There are some places that you can’t assess with a car because of the way the houses are and then most of the people living here are poor. The thieves know that and that is why they steal anything they can lay their hands on”.