By Monsur Olowoopejo
Amid tight security,  robbers again struck the Lagos state secretariat, Alausa, Ikeja, on Friday and carted away an undisclosed sum of money and also vandalised a Honda car with registration number: LR 655 EKY.

It would be recalled that a similar incident occurred two months ago, when a vehicle was vandalised near the Ministry of Rural Development, with about N1.5 million taken away. The robbery act occurred at about 4pm, when civil servants were preparing for home but their attention was drawn when an attempt to burgle the car triggered off the vehicle alarm.

Saturday Vanguard gathered that the robbers drove into the premises of the seat of power in a tinted Land Rover Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) with registration number GB 878 ABC, having traced the owner of the Honda car to the parking lot of one of the Ministry close to the main entrance of the secretariat, where they vandalised the wind shield at the driver’s side, before carting away the money.

Noticing an inherent danger, the robbers, said to be two in number quickly took away the money and jumped into their car.

While the robber were attempting to drive out of the secretariat, not knowing that the information has been passed round among security officers who promptly shut all exit from the secretariat.

Sensing that they have been boxed-in, the robbers drove to the parking lot of the block housing the Ministry of Waterfront Infrastructure, and Tourism, parked the SUV in a hurry and fled on foot.

The incident threw the whole secretariat into confusion, with workers and security officers combing the whole secretariat in search of the robbers, one of which was said to have put on white guinea brocade.

“They were two, one of them is wearing white guinea brocade”, a security officer told Vanguard, adding that the robber parked the SUV in from of the ministry before disappearing in haste. “I thought he is a visitor”, a security officer said.

As at the time of filing this report, the jeep, whose four tyres have been deflated, is still parked where it has been abandoned, while workers and security officers were still waiting for the owner of the Honda car to determine how much was actually stolen by the bandit.

Last year, the secretariat recorded more two incident of robbery, with one involving the press crew bus, whose brain box was stolen.