By Alie Turay
As lawlessness increases in the country, Lumley residents and beyond are in great fear for their lives and properties.
It is no longer news that pedestrians and motorist plying the routes of Lumley round- about, most times move around the area in great fear, as they usually are attacked by gangs who mostly occupy the footpath of these routes.
According to Musa Kallon, a resident of Goderich, told AWOKO, he normally leaves office in the early hours of the evening in-order to avoid being attacked by the gangs who mostly use knife and any other sharp objects to threaten people using that route in the evening hours all the way to the Lumley bus station.
He said he was attacked in his car in February 2013, when driving home by an unknown person, who opened the back door of his car and took away his official laptop bag which apart from the laptop also contains valuable documents and IDs. He described his ordeal as one of the worst in his life and called on the authorities responsible to do something fast to protect the people using that route.
A banker, Jebbeh Kamara was also robbed at the Lumley bus station in March this year.
She told AWOKO that she pulled over the roadside to pick some commodities from one of the stores at the bus stop, but on her return to the car, she found out that the car tape, her hand bag which contains drivers license, bank documents, undisclosed amount of money and other valuable documents were all missing from the car in less than two minutes. When asked if the car doors were properly closed she said, “I closed all the doors and do an all-round door check before walking to the store. I believe these people have master keys”.
She called on all not to do any business along that area,as according to her, this will prompt the shop owners to call on the police to remove the gangs who loot around that area in the early hours of the night.
Taxi driver, Amidu Bangura, who told AWOKO that, on Wednesday April 10, as he was waiting for the traffic flow, a gang of young men, approached his car shouting “driver Aberdeen Road” I nodded my head and four of them quickly entered the taxi and suddenly one of them who was sitting in the middle of the back seat pulled out a long knife and pressed it firmly on my stomach, asking me to give them all what I had made for that day, as I was about to stop, the one in front said, ‘if you slow down, we will stab you to death and nothing will come out of it, “I had no option but to give them all the money I had worked for that day’. He said I will no longer take passengers down to Lumley. I will only stop at Kandeh Drive and make a U-turn. When asked if he had reported the matter to the police at Lumley station, he said reporting the matter will not give me back my money “I think the Police are concentrating on Bike riders and drivers for the “normal thing”.
It could be recalled that, one of the shops at the Lumley station was looted recently and this has created a lot of fear among the business community in that area.
However, efforts by AWOKO to reach the LUC in-charge of Lumley Police Station remained fruitless.
