Armed robberies are fast spreading like bushfire in Dar es Salaam and other major cities in the country, making life unsafe for residents and visitors.
Police take off with their ‘catch’ — two armed robbers who staged a daylight robbery at a filling station at Buguruni Malapa in Dar es Salaam before being cornered at the junction of Nelson Mandela Expressway and Nyerere Road on Sunday. (Photo by Staff Photographer)
Hardly a day passes these days without hearing or reading news about this and that incident of robbery with violence, the other word for armed robbery, at major commercial and outlets, including banks, petrol stations, goldsmiths and supermarkets.
In some cases of armed robbery, the criminals in the practice have accosted and ambushed cashiers or affluent individuals while on their way to and from the banks or other money ‘shops’. Conventional wisdom would have it that such hold-ups involving cashiers and some other official money handlers on their way to and from the banks are an inside job in which the bandits must have been tipped on the money transactions well in advance.
This would sound correct as how could one explain the timing of the robberies that happen with clockwork precision. How could the thugs have known when the cashiers from this and that company had been taking huge amounts of cash and to or from which bank if not from tip-offs?
Armed robberies often disrupt normal activities as members of the public have to take cover to avoid exchanges of fire between the bandits and security details, including the police and watchmen. There is also the underlying risk of innocent passers-by being harmed in crossfires.
Apart from disrupting normal activity and causing bodily harm to innocent customers or passers-by, armed robberies erode the confidence of investors to whom peace and security are prerequisites to pouring capital into a country. As you can see, armed robbers are also economic saboteurs of sorts as they can cause an erosion of investor-confidence in a country of interest which, of course, won’t be good for the economy.
Who, for example, in his or her right sense of mind would open a commercial banking business in a country where bank robberies are a norm? Cash centres and big businesses are entities that mostly fall victim to armed robbers suffer and that extends to the economy on a broader scale’, not forgetting the adverse effect on the investment scene. Armed robbers are parasites living off the sweat of others.
It is strange and disgusting that such able-bodied and youthful individuals should even dream of a world of riches without even working for it! That is how abominable they all are. There was a time in the past when the then military rulers in Nigeria decided that enough was enough as far as armed robbers were concerned. They had imposed the most draconian and punishment of death by firing squad in public on convicted armed robbery suspect.
Every Sunday on some beach in the former federal capital, Lagos, the condemned robbers would be lined up and tied to posts before they are dispatched by the firing squads as people in their thousands watched! That’s how bad armed robbery is to the extent that some countries brook no nonsense on the culprits.
It is high time authorities here took tougher measures against armed robbers to serve as deterrence before the situation escalates to untamable proportions. The authorities concerned should know that this one is for real. Armed robbers are on the prowl and nobody knows when they will strike next, where and how, which is enough cause for the police and entire security apparatus in the country to be on the alert.
The security operatives who apprehended the two bandits (I would not even like to use the honourable name of ‘suspected bandits’ for them as they were caught red-handed and even opened fire on their chasers) on Sunday as they were running away with the money they had robbed at a filling station at Buguruni Malapa in Dar es Salaam deserve a pat on the back for the job well done.
Without going too draconian on armed robbers like the past administrations in Nigeria, which imposed death sentences on any proven armed robber, our own penal code needs a review to provide for sterner punishment for armed robbers and their accomplices.
Armed robbers are on the prowl in the city of Dar es Salaam and in other major cities. They use more sophisticated methods and more sophisticated weapons. Where they get them, nobody knows for sure. This is enough cause for worry and need to be on the alert and more prepared to face these monstrous beings called armed robbers. Hasn’t a stitch in time, as the saying goes, always saved nine?
By GABBY MGAYA, Tanzania Daily News
