-Abduct All Passengers
Independence Day celebration in Imo State yesterday was marred by the activities of gunmen who attacked two buses travelling from Lagos to Owerri and abducted all passengers on board.
The incident which reportedly occurred somewhere along the ever busy Owerri-Onitsha Road, has contradicted claims by security agencies, the Imo State government and its officials that insecurity and attendant consequences had been eradicated in the state.
Reports available to our news desk indicate that the buses were ambushed by the gunmen who hid in the surrounding bushes with their cattle blocking the road as if they were crossing to the other side to graze.
Before yesterday’s incident popular human rights activist and seasoned radio broadcaster Mazi Chinonso Uba (Nonso Nkwa), in a video aired on his Facebook page lamented the abduction of occupants of a Toyota High Lander SUV) earlier in the day.
According to him, the culprits who he alleged were Fulani herdsmen, used their cattle to block the road, thereby compelling the driver to slow down at the point where he was attacked and abducted.
Nonso Nkwa, used the opportunity to inform his audience of what he described as the latest trick of the kidnappers, “who use their cows to block the road as if they are crossing, while the heavily armed gunmen lay ambush in the surrounding bush waiting for unsuspecting drivers and motorists who often slow down for the cows used as baits to cross to the other side.
According to the renowned human rights activist “the dare devil Fulani herdsmen have resorted to using their cows to block roads in a bid to compel targeted vehicles to stop in very lonely and deserted bushy areas where they abduct passengers and occupants enmasse”.
He regretted the inability or refusal of the state government and relevant security agencies to do something about the dangerous development that seems to have become the plight of innocent law-abiding Imo people who have been abandoned to their fate.
