The robber is one of three who snatched a woman’s handbag on March 21.

The populations of Douala are becoming more lethal and violent towards robbers than they (robbers) could have in a while imagined. Years of hostile domestic onslaughts, public harassments, coupled with the wave of violently fatal murders, the common Douala resident has lived the vengeance of public insecurity and the anarchy of armed proliferation. The usurping order has taught the common city dweller the mistrust of public order – and as a matter of fact the public took the decisive turn last Sunday (March 18) to set ablaze an alleged armed bandit who murdered a bike rider in Ndokoti, then attempting to flee with his bike, and the same scenario repeated in Bépanda Wednesday, March 21; surely the lawless old days have again bounced back.

The inhabitants of Bépanda neighbourhood, through a furious Bonabo mob, lynched one Toko Noudimeni Elvis to death at about 11 pm Wednesday. The 28-year-old robber suspect is accused of snatching the handbag of a renowned woman of Bépanda around the Bonabo area. It is reported that before his murder, Toko Noudimeni Elvis had at about 1 am on March 19 stabbed to death a certain Kwaté Joseph, 42, still in the neighbourhood, and has since been on the run. As fate holds it, Toko featured again three days after with two other gang members and snatched the woman’s handbag.

A security source said Kwaté Joseph was returning from a tontine and had benefitted huge sums when the robbers assaulted and latter buried a knife in his chest. Kwaté latter died at about 4 am at the Laquintinie Hospital. The other two of Toko’s collaborators are on the run. However, the population has vowed to cause their arrest as soon as possible, revealing that the robbers are people of the neighbourhood.

Without retelling the oddities of Cameroon’s famous economic city Douala, it is worth noting that the grip of lawlessness in every social entity or social order usually has its undertones. By some sound knowledge, this stimulus should goad the forces of law and order not even a bid to revise their marksman rigour against the men of the underworld, but rather to ensure that law and social order are respected within a framework of protecting the public, properties and institutions.