Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State recently rescued a 22-year old vulcanizer, Akin Abayomi, who was found stark naked at Tafawa Balewa Square, TBS, Marina, Lagos, southwest Nigeria, around 12 midnight.
Abayomi was found naked in the middle of the road when the governor was driving by with his convoy and thinking he was a mad man, Fashola ordered his security aides to pick him up for rehabilitation.
The man was taken to the State House, Marina where he was housed for the night before the governor sent for the Special Adviser on Youth and Social Development, Dr. Dolapo Badru to rehabilitate him.
Abayomi confessed that he was not a mad man, but that he stripped himself in the middle of the night on the road because he wanted to curse the person who stole his cell phone and his money.
He said he visited a herbalist in his quest for revenge against the person who stole his cell phone and money and was instructed to carry out the act in order to curse his enemy, which was why he was naked in the middle of the night.
According to Badru, the man said he was never mad and that he was an apprentice and that his phone and money were stolen by somebody.
“After I picked him up from the State House, he said he was not a mad man, but says he drinks and smokes marijuana and that he is an apprentice in a vulcanizing workshop. He said he bought a phone and that somebody stole the phone.
“After we investigated for two weeks to know his family, we realised that the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, an arm of the Holy Cross Cathedral, is also interested in rehabilitating him,” he explained.
Badru disclosed that the governor released N100,000 to Abayomi to start up his own vulcanizing business as well as bought him a phone and asked the church to monitor his progress.
He said the governor has really changed his life, saying that if Fashola had not picked him up, he would not have completed his apprenticeship training to become a successful vulcaniser.