Exploits of slain Lagos cultist, Small Jpron

In the Shomolu-Bariga area of Lagos, a certain Jpron bestrode, until penultimate Wednesday, the streets so imperiously that almost two weeks after he had been killed by members of the Aiye rivals, residents still walk about with trepidation. Aiye and Eye are the deadliest of cult gangs in Lagos State. Jpron, 31, born Ibrahim Oriyomi […]

In the Shomolu-Bariga area of Lagos, a certain Jpron bestrode, until penultimate Wednesday, the streets so imperiously that almost two weeks after he had been killed by members of the Aiye rivals, residents still walk about with trepidation. Aiye and Eye are the deadliest of cult gangs in Lagos State.

Jpron, 31, born Ibrahim Oriyomi Balogun, had seemed invincible, after eliminating many leaders of the Aiye group in Shomolu-Bariga, killing many other innocent souls, and even securing freedom from police and prison detention each time he was arrested for his atrocities.

Jpron had grown up wearing quite an innocuous look in the Morocco road-Apata axis of Shomolu where was born and an aunt of his still lives, before he relocated to the Abeokuta Street area of Bariga where his father, a commercial bus driver, has his family house.

It was in Bariga that he gradually embraced a life of crime. As gathered by Daily Trust on Sunday, Jpron gained membership of a group of youths in the area known as the Downtown Boys. He then dug into the act of waylaying passers-by in Bariga mostly at dawn and dusk and do some ‘obtaining’, a parlance for the forceful collection of valuables like mobile phones and money from the helpless.

From ‘obtaining’, Jpron rose to be a leader of the Eye cult group. Funding for the group, as well as for other cult groups in Lagos, came, and still comes quite easy. It is a known fact in Lagos that political leaders employ the two cult groups as enforcers to do their dirty jobs, as the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Imohimi Edgal, declared last Thursday.

Besides, many business people, including the sand dealers at the seaside on Ilaje Road, Bariga and the many commercial bus, tricycle and motorcycle operators in the area, must pay certain dues to Jpron and his boys or be damned, which could come through death.

Nobody could say exactly when Jpron began killing, but as he confessed to the Lagos State police command when he was arrested in 2016, he joined the Eye cult in 2009 and immediately began his killing spree. His excuse was that some Aiye cult rivals had killed a friend of his called Sunday Folorunsho, alias Small Biscuits, and he had to revenge.

In 2011, Jpron killed two rival gang leaders, Femi Wiper and Lekan Akon, whom he believed to have participated in the murder of Small Biscuits. “I cut them with knives. I shot some other victims. They were killed in the Somolu and Bariga areas. It was in the evening that Femi Wiper was killed. We were going out for a carnival during the Easter period on Alade Street in the Somolu area when a fight broke out. He was the one who first pointed a gun at me and my boys hacked him to death,” he told the police.

Multiple murders in one fell swoop he didn’t tell the police about was the wipe-out of a family of nine somewhere in Bariga. A cult member who wouldn’t disclose his identity confided in our correspondent that sometime in 2012, a fellow hoodlum in the area offended Jpron. He was said to have stormed the hoodlum’s house, and not meeting his target at home, he cold-bloodedly gunned his nine relations he met to death.

On Tuesday, December 10, 2013, an Aiye leader, 36-year-old Segun Ogbere, widely known in cult circles in Lagos, and specifically in Bariga, as Shaggy, was returning home to Bariga from the Yaba magistrate court about 4pm when Jpron and his boys cornered him. Shaggy, a rival to Jpron for control in collection of illegal dues from the helpless in Bariga, was known to have been responsible for many deaths himself.

In the Akoka area leading to Bariga, Jpron and one of his boys blocked with their car the truck in which Shaggy was hiding, dragged him down and began to machete him in full glare of the horrified public.

A witness to that killing said while Jpron concentrated on macheting Shaggy in the head, his partner focused on the victim’s tummy, while people watched in horror.

In 2016, the then state Commissioner of Police, Fatai Owoseni, arrested Small Jpron, whom he disclosed had earlier been declared wanted by the police for multiple cases of murder.

Owoseni said that in January of that year, cultists in Shomolu and Bariga had engaged one another in a war of supremacy where many people, including some of Jpron’s boys, were killed. A vindictive Jpron set about for revenge. He led a group of boys to a building on Oshinfolarin Street, Bariga, where a member of the rival gang resided. Jpron set the building on fire and burnt with it to death a 65-year-old woman, Adejoke Adefuye.

While parading him, Owoseni told journalists, “He (Jpron) has multiple cases of murder and armed robbery which he has confessed to.” The erstwhile Lagos police Commissioner said Jpron had killed five persons in different cult wars. Sources very close to the ruthless cultist told Daily Trust on Sunday that that number grossly understated how many lives Jpron had snuffed out in cult wars.

According to Owoseni, the suspect had also been involved in serial hired killings and had been contracted by several gangs to settle private and business scores. He also described him as a serial rapist.

“Jpron has been giving residents of Shomolu sleepless nights. He is an ex-convict and has been in and out of various prisons for rape cases, robbery, cultism and thuggery. He has jumped bail severally,” he said.

Jpron was arraigned for charges bordering on murder, possession of firearms and belonging to a cult group and was remanded in prison pending advice from the State Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). But, according to reports, the DPP advised that the murder charge be dropped for a lesser charge of belonging to an unlawful society. A source told our correspondent that Jpron’s protective shield against legal prosecution were some topmost, highly influential political leaders in the state for which he did dirty jobs.

So just as residents of Shomolu and Bariga were rejoicing that Jpron was finally out of circulation, he was seen again in Shomolu in late 2016 celebrating his release from prison custody. The charges against him, as those before them, had died an influenced death. The police had earlier arrested him in 2012 and 2015, before Owoseni pulled him into police custody again in 2016. And on all occasions, he regained his freedom without being prosecuted to conclusion.

In September 2017, the police again arrested Jpron after cult-related skirmishes that culminated in deaths. But rather than arraign him in court for multiple murders, he was charged before an Ebute Meta chief magistrate court with mere membership of a secret cult, to which he pleaded not guilty. The Chief Magistrate, Mrs Oluyemisi Adelaja, granted him bail of N300,000, with two sureties in like sum and fixed further hearing for October 16, 2017. A couple of months later, Jpron was again on Somolu-Bariga streets free as air. Nobody heard of that case being tried anymore till rival cultists killed the cult leader penultimate Wednesday.

Jpron’s death that evening was a shock – and a huge joy – to residents of Shomolu-Bariga. Residents had resigned themselves to the belief Jpron was invincible, both before his cult rivals and the law. But it appeared karma had its own design. At about 5pm on October 17, 2018, Jpron, our correspondent learnt, was informed by some of his boys that some politicians were meeting at a restaurant at the Palmgrove-Obanikoro area on Ikorodu Road, Lagos. Jpron was said to be recuperating from an illness at the time and actually had whitlow on a thumb. A source narrated that when he was being treated in a hospital, the injection needle wouldn’t penetrate. To enable the injection go in, the source added, Jpron was persuaded to do away with the many charms on his body, which he was said to have done.

At the venue of the meeting, a battle for control ensued between Jpron’s Eye cult gang and members of the Aiye cult, led by Solomon Owie, widely known as Solo. It was learnt that as Jpron pursued Solo, a member of the Aiye cult, identified by his nickname, The Don, shot him in the back. The first bullet was said not to have penetrated. “But as he turned round to look at who dared shoot him, a second bullet hit him in the chest and a third in the neck, after which he fell,” the source said.

Jpron’s followers immediately descended on Solo and smashed his head with heavy objects.