Gunmen hijack two passengers buses in Ekiti

As the Amotekun Corps beefed up security in the South-West, gunmen on Monday waylaid travellers on the Ayetoro Ekiti-Otun Ekiti Road and whisked no fewer than four persons into the forest.

Sources said two buses conveying passengers from the Otun Ekiti end of the road were attacked by the gunmen, who abducted four passengers, while the others escaped.

A source said one of those, who escaped, told him that the gunmen took away four passengers from the two buses.

Another source, who said he got information about the attack from hunters, said, “The hunters were called that some kidnappers were operating on the Ayetoro Ekiti-Otun Ekiti Road.

“But before they got there, the gunmen had commandeered the two buses into the bush. At that point, we could not tell the number of people taken into the forest, but the buses were abandoned there.

“I advised the hunters and the security agents, who arrived at the scene later, that the kidnappers would have gone towards Otun and that they could not have gone very far by then.

“Definitely, they were the ones, who operated on the Ayetoro-Ewu Road on Sunday. The Sunday operation was not successful and that was why they waited around to carry out this one.”

According to him, the kidnappers, on realising that they had missed their targets on Sunday, might have resorted to attacking commercial motorcycle riders and shot indiscriminately in the air to scare people off.

“An Okada rider was stopped at gunpoint and the hoodlums took all his valuables, while another Okada operator escaped into the bush. The kidnappers fled when they noticed that the other Okada rider had escaped,” the source added.

The Police Public Relations Officer in Ekiti State, Sunday Abutu, who confirmed the incident, said, “We heard the information and we have deployed our men there.

“There was a kidnap incident this morning (Monday). I cannot yet confirm the number of people abducted. It began on Sunday evening when some suspected robbers attacked a man, whom the police thereafter rescued. But this morning, we learnt that the suspects were the ones who abducted some road users. The police are on their trail.”