When Aaron Okure (not real name) and his family retired for the night on Monday, nothing could have prepared them for the gunfire that ensued in the wee hours of Tuesday.

Okure told FIJ he was fast asleep when some gun-wielding men broke into his home in Kuchibuyi community, Kubwa, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), around midnight.

HOW IT ALL STARTED

Okure said he first heard the gunshots around 12:45 am, and then his wife tapped him and said the shooters were trying to get into their home.

“Before we knew what was happening, they started hitting my gate. They scaled through the fence when they could not enter through the gate. We started praying because there was nothing we could do at that point,” Okure told FIJ.

According to Okure, after the gunmen had gained entry into the compound, they tried to enter the house through the main door, but it was too difficult for them to handle.

He said the men subsequently tried to force their way in through the dining while shattering the windows and attempting to yank off the burglaries.

“They shot at the burglary and window of the dining. They tried to break the door while shooting but it somehow got locked, so they couldn’t come in through the door,” said Okure.

“I had already given up. I had worn my jeans, hoping to plead with them to take me but leave my wife and children.”

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HELP CAME

While the gunmen attempted to remove Okure’s burglary to force their way into his house, the vigilantes arrived and shot at the intruders.

“The vigilantes came at about 1:00 am and exchanged fire with the gunmen. The men ran into the bush after that,” said Okure.

“The chief of the community then called the police, and they came around 1:13 am.”

However, Okure said that even though the vigilantes were accustomed to moving about at night to secure lives and property, the local security group would not have swiftly swung into action without the help of a teenage boy.

FIJ gathered that the boy was awake at the time of the shooting and notified his older sibling.

“With their help, the vigilantes were alerted, and they mobilised and came to my house,” said Okure.

FIJ learned that the gunmen were between six and eight, and they did not cover their faces with masks or hoods.

A SUSPECT FOUND IN THE BUSH

Okure told FIJ that the vigilantes later entered the bush in pursuit of the gunmen who fled following the group’s arrival.

He said that the vigilantes caught a wounded guy suspected to be one of the armed men who tried to burgle his house, but he feared that the police might try to cover it up.

“For the first time, they have caught a kidnapper here. I don’t want the police to cover it up. They should investigate it and find out those who came to abduct me,” he said.

“I had a really terrible night. That experience was so traumatising for us. My wife could not even go to work.”

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NOT THE FIRST AT KUBWA

“This is not the first time something like this will be happening in this community. This is the 3rd to 5th incident in two years,” Okure disclosed.

He told FIJ that some gunmen had abducted some residents in a nearby estate, and they were not released until they paid ransoms.

In March, FIJ published a story on how gunmen kidnapped some residents of Grow Home Estate in Kubwa.

He said despite the recurring abductions in the area, the security presence was not only low but the police also appeared indifferent to the residents’ plights.

“The police are aware but they are not doing anything. This route connects Niger to Kaduna State, yet there’s no security presence. FCT police don’t even care about this place at all,” he said.

Meanwhile, FIJ called a member of the vigilante group and he said the suspect had been handed over to the police.

Although he could not specify the number of gunmen who had come to Okure’s house, he said the suspect who was arrested was found lost in the bush.

“He was found in the bush by some people going to the farm this morning,” the man told FIJ.

FIJ called Josephine Adeh, the FCT police spokesperson, several times on Tuesday but she did not answer the calls. She had also not responded to the message sent to her at the time of this publication.