The occupants of two vehicles are believed to have been kidnapped by unknown gunmen in Iju, a border town in the Akure North Local Government Area of Ondo State.

Eyewitnesses, in an interview with FIJ on Friday, said the incident happened around 4.30 pm on Thursday.

“I was coming back from the introductory part of a cousin’s forthcoming wedding ceremony when I witnessed the incident yesterday,” one of the eyewitnesses, who preferred to be addressed as Bolu, said.

“For the past three years, and because of how dangerous and life-threatening the Iju road can be to commuters, I had not been driving on it.

“That road has witnessed many cases of kidnapping. While returning from that particular event, I chose to take that route with the hope that there would be no incident.

“However, as I got to Iju and was about to drive past a private school known as Ola Oluwa, I suddenly saw three vehicles coming in the opposite direction at full speed, with their headlights on.

“As the vehicles got close to me, their occupants started yelling at me to turn around because kidnappers were currently operating in the direction I was driving towards.

“I then quickly turned around in a flash to avoid being kidnapped as well.

“As we were all driving for safety, I noticed that one of the vehicles belonging to a group of people who had told me to turn around had been shot at several times by the attackers.

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“The kidnappers shot at the vehicle while the driver was trying to avoid the ambush they had laid for unsuspecting road users.

“The vehicle had bullet holes all around it. Luckily, no one died from the kidnappers’ shooting.”

TWO EMPTIED VEHICLES LATER FOUND

Another eyewitness, who asked not to be named, told FIJ that commuters who had initially fled the scene called the police and some Amotekun officers an hour later for help.

“When the police and some Amotekun officers later arrived at the scene, they encouraged us to continue our journey and led us in a convoy to the particular scene of the incident,” the second eyewitness said.

“When we got to a particular point on the same road, we saw that the doors of two vehicles, one Corolla and one Highlander, were opened.

“We also discovered that there were no occupants in both cars, and this could only mean that they had been kidnapped by the gunmen and led into the surrounding bushes.

“The police and Amotekun officers then saw some footprint signs along a couple of bush paths and decided to trace them. The tracing, however, did not bear any fruit till we continued our journey.”

‘POLICE VACATED CHECK POINT THIRTY MINUTES BEFORE INCIDENT HAPPENED’

A third eyewitness, who also asked not to be named, told FIJ that a group of police officers had just left their checkpoint posts when the incident happened.

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“It may interest you to know that the police would always mount checkpoints at this particular area of the road on a regular basis,” the eyewitness said.

“Shockingly, the kidnapping incident happened 30 minutes after they left the checkpoint yesterday.

“They left around 4 pm, and the incident happened around 4.30 pm.”

ONDO PPRO SPEAKS

When FIJ called Funmilayo Odunlami-Omisanya, the police spokesperson for Ondo State, for comments on the incident on Friday, she said she needed to confirm the incident first from the DPO of the station covering Iju town.

“I will need to get a confirmation first from the DPO of that area,” Odunlami said.

“I think that area might be a boundary area. I need to be sure where exactly it happened. Let me confirm from the DPO of that area. I do not want to give you information that is false.

“Please call me back.”

When FIJ called Odunlami-Omisanya a second time, the response she gave was not helpful.

“The incident you are demanding answers on is actually a case of abandoned vehicles that you saw,” the PPRO claimed.

“A vehicle was abandoned by the roadside, and by the time they (police officers) got there, they saw bullet holes around the car.

“Some of the circumstances observed make us treat the incident as a suspected case of kidnapping.

“The anti-kidnapping squad has also been immediately deployed to that area, just to move around and see if anything of the sort happened, so that the victims can be rescued and the assailants can also be arrested.”

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When FIJ asked to know the period the anti-kidnapping squad was deployed, Odunlami-Omisanya became very “defensive”.

“I think what matters right now is that they (the anti-kidnapping squad) have been deployed,” said Odunlami-Omisanya.

FIJ again asked if the DPO covering Iju had raised the alarm about the incident after it happened on Thursday to prompt the deployment.

“Please, I have a lot on my hands. Like I said, the anti-kidnapping squad has been deployed to that particular area,” the spokesperson said.

“I have so many things to do, and I actually had to wait for this call before doing them. What exactly do you want to hear again? The accurate information at the moment is that the anti-kidnapping squad has been deployed to that area.”