By Evelyn Usman

LAGOS—Lagos State Police Command, yesterday, advised Lagosians to be wary of some unscrupulous persons who are currently circulating alarm messages about occurrence of violent crimes in the state.

He appealed to members of the public to discountenance the false alarm and advised them to contact the Police on the following numbers for useful information: 767 and 112.

The  messages, according to spokesman for the command, Mr Frank Mba, were usually sent through GSM voice calls, text messages on blackberries and e-mails with a warning to recipients to keep off specified areas where the alleged crimes are  said to be taking place.

One of such scenarios, according to Mba, played itself out last Saturday when the following text message was massively circulated among residents of Lagos: “Lagos-Epe Expressway completely blocked by a gang of armed robbers. If you are heading towards Epe or you know anyone that is, please stop for now.”

Mba also said that between 11 a.m and 12 noon yesterday, “ Lagosians were inundated with stories of an ongoing armed robbery operation around Fadeyi Bus-Stop, along Ikorodu road in Lagos State.”

In both cases, he informed that Police investigation revealed that the stories were false.

Stating that the dangers of allowing the dangerous trend to continue unchecked were unquantifiable, he said, “the fear of crime, whether real or imaginary can be as damaging as the actual crime itself.

“Their negative impact on our socio-economic activities are better imagined than experienced as important business meetings might have been aborted on account of these false messages leading to huge economic losses.”