The Lagos Ibadan expressway has been taken over by kidnappers. The daredevil criminals have struck again barely two weeks after they kidnapped some passengers on the busy highway.
With the manner the criminals elements now operate, security sources monitoring the road said passengers are not sure of their return back to their families whenever they are travelling on one of the continent’ s busiest highways.
On October 29, some travellers including a former deputy vice chancellor of the University of Ibadan Prof. Adigun Agbaje were abducted along the very busy highway.
The university Don had since been released after his family reportedly paid a N50 million ransome to the kidnappers, but other abductedees, including two sistes are still in the den of the criminal elements as hope of getting them out alive is becoming dim each day they spend with the kidnappers.
Speaking recently on the efforts to get her daughters out, their mother said there as no way to get the N20 million demanded by the kidnappers, who she said spoke fulfude, the language mostly spoken by Fulanis during the negotiations for ransome.
According to her, “Yes, we spoke to them. I was the one who spoke to them in their language, which I also understand. I am from Ogun State but I understand their language. They didn’t even let me beg them, they laughed at me and said, “You are here nagging, crying and begging us instead of you to go and look for the money?” They sounded so confident. It wasn’t something new to them. “Go and look for money and we will know what next to do,” they said.”
She called “on the Governor of Ogun State, my own governor, to come to my aid. I will not survive this if these children are taken away from me. I call on Dapo Abiodun’s wife; all the governors’ wives of the 36 states. I call on the president, Muhammadu Buhari and his wife, Aisha, to come and help me. Everyone who has a heart of flesh should come and help me. I cannot raise N20m on my own. I cannot! Help me! I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. My blood pressure, I am sure, has risen. I don’t want my children to die.”
On Tuesday, the kidnappers struck again on the road but did not succeed. The passenger’s who escaped the kidnappers by the whiskers have been narrating their stories.
According to Punch, the gunmen suspected to be kidnappers, dresssed in military uniform attacked commuters travelling on expressway on Tuesday.
Their target was an 18 – passenger commercial bus said to have been filled up with passengers at the time of the attack. The gunmen had shot at the bus with the intension of killing the driver in order to force the bust to stop.
Failure to get the driver, they started shooting sporadically at the passengers, thereby leaving many occupants with serious injuries.
Narrating their experience, some passengers said they were lucky to escape from the kidnappers who attacked them before the Sagamu interchange.
According to one of the victims who craved anonymity, “We (passengers) were only lucky to escape the gunmen but many of us have been injured by the bullets and our bus has been badly damaged too.”
Another video shows a man who survived bullet wounds recounting his experience saying, “I thought I was dead, having been shot by them.
“They faced our vehicle shooting at us, we all lay down except the driver who was the target. They thought we were all dead and retreated into the bush.
“The joint patrol team of police officers from Ogun and Oyo states arrived at the scene later,” he said.
While narrating his own experience in the hands of kidnappers operating on the road, Olabode Adekunle said he as forced to live with his captors for days before he was released after coughing out N2 milion.
According to him, he ran into some teenage kidnappers on the night he was driving his brother to the airport on the popular Long Bridge. His abductors, he claimed were Fulanis.
All attempts to reach the Ogun State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Abimbola Oyeyemi, for further details proved abortive as of the time of filing this report. He did not take his calls nor reply to the text message sent to his phone.
But other police sources who spoke with the magazine anonymously, because they are not under authority to speak on the matter said, a lot is being done to ensue safety on the road. Only a few Nigerians said they believe security agencies are working to keep kidnappers off the highway.
Meanwhile, close watches of what is going on on the highway insist that the two government’s of Oyo and Ogun states which share the border must do more to ensure the safety of road users. As part of such efforts to rid the road of kidnappers and other criminals elements, security experts say community leaders in these areas must work with security agencies. “We are talking of the most important expressway in the country. The road links the south with other parts of the country. Something must be done quickly before the expressway becomes another Abuja/ Kaduna expressway, ” Kola Alphonso, a regular traveller on the road told the magazine on Wednesday.
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