No fewer than 200 structures were burnt on Wednesday in Otodo Gbame, an Egun community in the Lekki Phase 1 area of Lagos State, during a clash between some Egun and Yoruba youths.
The crisis was reported to have started on Sunday, when the Yoruba youths demanded that the residents should relocate from the area.
It was gathered that the Egun community insisted that residents would not leave their houses, tagging the youths as hoodlums and land grabbers.
It was however gathered that the crisis came to a head on Wednesday when the Yoruba youths set fire to the structures in the area at about 8am.
The action was said to have triggered a clash between the youths of the Egun community and their Yoruba counterparts.
Two persons were said to have been injured during the clash, while the area was quickly deserted as the fire raged. Some residents reportedly salvaged their property from the fire and fled.
It was learnt that policemen from the Rapid Response Squad, the Maroko division and the Area J Command, Ajah, went to the area to restore normalcy.
A policeman on the team said an abandoned two-day-old baby was rescued from one of the burning structures.
He said, “When the structures were set ablaze, the mother and the father of the baby fled. It was the cry of the baby that drew the attention of policemen to that room. The baby was locked inside the house. The baby was rescued and reunited with her parents.”
“Nobody was killed, but about three persons were injured. The entire community was razed.”
