By Izunna Okafor, Awka
An Anambra-based financial literacy coach and medical laboratory scientist, Coach Izu Godson Udemezue, has recounted a harrowing experience in the hands of street urchins at the Ekene Park axis of the Onitsha Down Flyover, while calling on Governor Chukwuma Soludo to urgently address the worsening insecurity around the area.
Narrating his ordeal in a post shared on his social media handles, Udemezue explained that the incident occurred on Saturday, August 23, 2025, when he alighted from a Nnewi bus at the gate of Ekene Park, only to be immediately attacked by a group of street urchins. According to him, the hoodlums disguised as transport touts, assaulted him physically, attempted to dispossess him of his phone and money, and violently dragged him towards their vehicles under the pretense of forcing him to board a bus to Lagos or Abuja.
According to him, despite his repeated shouts that he was not travelling beyond Onitsha, the harassment intensified as the thugs pushed, punched, and tried to dip hands into his pockets, while uniformed officers of the Police and Road Safety were stationed nearby, allegedly indifferent to the situation.
“Immediately I came down from Nnewi bus at the gate of the park, some street urchins immediately started attacking me. One gave me a punch in the face which I dodged; one tried to pull my phone off from my hand (they would have easily snatched the phone off me if it were in my pocket but I already know the Onitsha rule when it comes to phone – (hold your phone in your hand); another tried to take money from my pocket; another pushed me violently from the back.
“All these were happening in the pretence that they were dragging me to enter their bus traveling to Lagos or Abuja or wherever. Meanwhile, I was shouting to them that I was not going anywhere; that my destination was in Onitsha.”
Udemezue added that “As all these madness was on going, police and road safety men on uniform where at the middle of the Onitsha flyover doing their “usual business” (you already know what I mean).”
He recounted how a genuine transport worker in a lemon jacket working with one of the transport companies inside the Ekene park pulled him away from the street urchins and pushed him into a blue and white Asaba bus. This, however, also led to further extortion from him.
His words: “While that conductor advised me not to come down from the bus because the street urchins would strip me of important valuables (I was most scared for my smart phone and ATM card), the driver of the bus announced that I must pay him ₦1000, which is the transport fare to Asaba. Although, I told him that I was not going to Asaba, that my destination was Uga Head Bridge.
“The street urchins still came to the bus and insisted that I must give them ₦3000 or they would drag me down from the bus. The bus conductor intervened and I finally gave one of the street urchins ₦500 reluctantly, and they left.”
Continuing, Udemezue said: “When the bus got to Uga Head Bridge, which was just about two minutes drive away from the Ekene park, I offered the conductor ₦500. Upon his showing it to the driver, the driver insisted that I would not come down from his bus until I paid him ₦1000 as he earlier announced. I pleaded to his conscience; he insisted; and I eventually paid the ₦1000. He said that he was not the police whose job it’s to get rid of the bad boys from the down flyover.
“That was how I spent ₦1500 by force from down flyover to Uga Head Bridge junction which is normally a ₦300 movement by bus.”
He further revealed that, on his way (inside Keke) going to a park to return to Nnewi, the tricycle operator started recounting how his Android phone had just been snatched by the same hoodlums around the area.
According to him, when he was finally inside bus going back to Nnewi, he shared his experience with his fellow passengers, who made him to know that the menace has become a regular pattern at the Ekene/Izuchukwu Park axis, with many suspecting that the street urchins are left to operate freely like that because they have allegedly “settled” some security operatives.
He described the development as shameful and dangerous, noting that despite the presence of several security formations in Anambra, including the Police, Army, Anambra Vigilante Group (AVG), Operation Udo Ga-Achị, and Ndi Aka Odo, none of them had addressed the criminal activities of the hoodlums at the strategic flyover area.
Udemezue further called on Governor Chukwuma Soludo to act swiftly and address such ugly menace and criminality being perpetrated in the area, warning that such insecurity could tarnish the state’s image and undermine also ongoing state government’s efforts to make Anambra a livable and prosperous homeland.
“While our active and working governor may be absorbed in campaigns for his second tenure, I pray that he and his team will not allow the security of Ndị Anambra to be pushed to the back burner.
“I plead that he and his team should no longer allow Ndị Anambra to be stripped of their dignity and ripped of their valuables by the street urchins operating at the Ekene park axis of Onitsha down flyover and in fact the entire Onitsha City,” he stressed.
While noting that he decided to share the experience and draw the government’s attention to the menace in line with Governor Soludo’s philosophy of “If you see something, say something,” Udemezue concluded by urging other citizens not to keep silent but to speak up against insecurity, insisting that evil thrives when good people fail to raise their voices.
