MONDAY Ogo is a commercial driver. He plies the Yenagoa-Port Harcourt road through the popular East- West Road. On that route, he hustles back and forth, every day, to earn his livelihood but sometime in November, last year, Ogo encountered death in common hours, along Rumugi and Emogha in the Rivers State axis of the road. He was attacked while making his daily rounds by suspected kidnappers. Reliving his ordeal, he said, that the hoodlums emerged from a nearby bush, brandishing guns, machetes and other weapons.
They faced his vehicle and started shooting thus creating panic. “That is their style. They will always come out of the bush and suddenly they will open fire to forcefully stop the driver. When the driver refuses to stop, they will shoot the driver and abduct the passengers. “After that they took us into the bush.
They blindfolded us and made us walk several kilometres into the bush. Those who could not walk fast, they used their matchetes to hit them thus forcing them to walk fast. “When we got to a point in the thick forest, they tied us and brought food to us. The food was nonsense. I refused to eat because the food did not look good.
I stayed three days there without food. I only prayed for God to come to my rescue and God truly intervened,” he said. Narrating his escape from the kidnappers’ den, Ogo said: “I was sitting in the midst of men that had guns with them. I heard a voice telling me to run. I heard that voice twice. I was no longer tied. So, when I heard the voice the third time, I sprang to my feet and took off. Before they realized it, it was dusk and I was beyond their reach. They did not know where I hid in the cover of darkness.
They passed by my hiding place and I took a separate route, tiptoeing until I escaped. “I had no money and I had been stripped to my boxer shorts. It was a terrible experience.
I don’t wish that my enemy suffers such experience. By the time I escaped, there were three men and three women in captivity of the kidnappers but they were too scared to join me. I cannot explain how I managed to escape till now. It can only be God.” Ogo’s nasty experience is one too many.
The Rumugi-Emogha-Elele axis of the East-West Road is widely acknowledged as a death trap, where kidnappers and armed robbers operate in careless abandon. For a long time, the hoodlums have converted the area to their killing field thus wasting the lives of commuters plying the road.
The forest, where the criminals operate unchallenged seems impregnable and as a result, most people now refer to it as the “Sambisa Forest.” Most people are aggrieved that the nightmare has continued without urgent intervention by security agencies. Recently a 16-passenger bus was attacked on the road and all the passengers were abducted by the assailants. Despite many police checkpoints along the road, the crime had continued unabated, said Ogo.
According to him, “Abomination is going on in that bush. In our presence, they killed and slaughtered people. They killed people especially those that could not pay the ransom. When they kill them, they dismember them and sell their parts to buyers. People were coming to buy human parts there. So, the government should not say they are not aware of what is happening.”
Most travellers resist attempts by bus drivers to ply the road, Ogo said, adding that drivers, who eventually summon courage to take the route, would never stop along the road for people to patronize snack sellers and other roadside hawkers. Corroborating him, Suraji Adeogun, a commercial transporter, He recalled how the hoodlums killed drivers of popular transport companies such as ‘God is Good’ and ‘Agofure.’ After the bandits killed the drivers, he said, they kidnapped all the passengers in the buses and took them into the bush. “The road is so bad, starting from Elele to Emogha, Rumugi is very bad.
We heard, recently, that they caught some of them but we are begging the federal government to do more. Most of us don’t take that route. We take the airport road. If you want to pass that side you will be scared until you get to Choba. “If government want to do their work, they know what they are supposed to do. Those criminals can come out at any time. Sometimes, they operate twice a day.
It can be any period in a day. They don’t have specific time,” he said. Daniel Ozeke plies the road too. He said, though he had not encountered them, their activities have affected his business. “I have heard of such incidents. They have happened to our drivers and passengers. It was so terrible.
At a time, we were not having passengers again because any time from 2pm, from Okobe to Ahoada to Rumugi, especially ahoda and Rumugi, these are the most dangerous areas,” he said. A commuter, John Mariufe, also lamented that, “When you pass a police checkpoint, you will see five or six men in mufti and guns robbing and kidnapping people,once they hold you, they take you inside the bush and ask you to pay money. “If you don’t have the money, they will separate you from others.
While they set those who pay free, they will butcher those who don’t have money to pay. If the butchered person is a woman, they will collect her private parts and sell them to buyers. “I am suspecting, that, some of the policemen at the checkpoints inform them about an approaching vehicle and immediately you pass those policemen, the criminals will jump out of the bush and begin to shoot at you. It is terrible.
“We are calling on the government to come to our rescue. Once you pass Choba to Emogha, you will run into their den. That is where it is always happening. The police along that axis are not cut for their job,” said Mariufe. We’ve lost more than five drivers, says NUTRW chairman Speaking on the development, the Chairman, National Union of Road Transport Workers (NUTRW), Port Harcourt axis, Ekeki Park, Anyamalem Gift, said many drivers and their passengers have become victims of the bandits. He said: “We have lost over five drivers within one year. I am talking about our own drivers that use our parks and not drivers of other companies.
At this point, the government should do something that will help arrest the situation, they should not just treat it with lip service. “We are the victims all the time. They are kidnapping passengers.
The driver is their target. They will kill the driver and take the passengers, they don’t even have time, anytime they like, they will come out and do whatever they like, it is only by God’s favour that we ply that road.”
The development, stressed Gift, has affected their transport business, “Because initially, between 4am to 5am, people come out and embark on their journey, but this time around, even around 7am, you will not get passengers because of the happenings on the road.” He said: “The bandits come out even when you don’t expect them to be on the road. There was a time they came out at 1pm.
Sometimes, in a day, they would come out up to six times and nobody is doing anything about it. So, we don’t even make 30 per cent of what we were making before. “When you go to that road the surprising thing is that from pole to pole ,you will see checkpoints but when these boys come, the police will disappear. They will reappear when the bandits have finished their operation.
Even when the drivers call the police, you will not see them.” Soldiers to the rescue? There is no gainsaying drivers and commuters plying the road are angry at the police. Consequently, mmany have called on the Federal Government to deploy soldiers in the affected areas to guarantee the security of road users.
The only solution, stressed the drivers, is the deployment of soldiers or specially trained squads from the office of the Inspector-General of Police in the area even as they called for the immediate withdrawal of regular policemen from the road. Activists proffer solutions Alagoa Morris, the Bayelsa State Coordinator of the Environmental Rights Action (ERA), has called the attention of Rivers and Bayelsa states’ governors, Nyesom Wike and Seriake Dickson, to increasing attacks on passengers plying the road. Morris said abducted victims were being slaughtered and shot dead carelessly by rampaging gunmen operating at the Ahoada section of the East-West road between Elele and Emohua local government Headquarters of Rivers State.
Morris said, the situation has become so bad that passengers fret while passing through the road. He insisted that the governors and the Federal Government should develop special security interventions to stop the ongoing brazen criminality on the section of the road. He recalled that an elder statesman from Bayelsa, Francis Duokpola, who escaped being abducted by the bandits with his vehicle bullet-ridden, held a thanksgiving, recently, to appreciate God for protecting him.
He said: “So many persons have become victims of kidnapping along the section of the road. While it was gratifying to hear that some victims were rescued by the police,when an Agofure Bus was attacked not long ago; one would think the authorities have not done enough on the subject matter. This is so because the protection of lives and property remain front-line duties of any legitimate government; the world over.
“The harrowing accounts of the few who have survived being abducted by those engaged in the act, is hard to swallow. Anyone who listens to the experience of a victim and still sleeps well, eat well and feel unconcerned must have considered the country’s situation hopelessly irredeemable,” he said. “According to a survivor, even pastors who fall victim are killed carelessly.
For instance, it was told that when a group of victims were captured and were being marched from the East/West Road to the Shrine or camp in the bush, two men announced to their abductors that they were pastors. This irritated the kidnappers; causing them to be shot and killed immediately. “Even at the shrine or camp, where victims are held, they are killed at the slightest provocation. For instance, those without ATM or cash stand a very grave risk as they could be summarily executed.
Again, if they call the number given to them by any of the victims and the calls are not picked after two or three calls; the victim would face execution. “Sometimes victims are separated into those who have cash or ATM and those who don’t have. Those who have none are shot to death without delay. Besides, no food or water is provided for victims in captivity; an environment with several skulls.
“A survivor has thus advised that people should try and pick calls, whether from known or unknown numbers because, they might just be saving lives by picking the calls. Should our people now be denied travels because society is doing nothing to contain those engaged in this heinous crime? “Apart from the security votes available to the Rivers and Bayelsa State governments; why can’t these two state governments seek for effective collaboration with the Federal Government to tackle this monster before it takes a greater dimension? Community forests along the East/West Road should be combed by combine team of the military, police and Civil Defence.
This should be with the cooperation of local vigilante,” said Morris. Recently, aggrieved drivers and exmilitants barricaded a section of the East-West road to protest rising cases of killings, kidnapping, armed robberies and other criminal activities along the gateway road. Chanting songs in solidarity, the protesters insisted that the worsening insecurity along the Rivers State axis of the road was alarming and called for deployment of soldiers at strategic points on the highway.
Leader of the procession, Ebi John, said: “We are in pains. Every single day there are killings, kidnapping, arm robbery along the East-West Road and in the entire Niger Delta which we are not happy about. “We are appealing to the government to send soldiers to the troubled areas on the East-West road. We need the military troops because we are not safe anymore. Our wives are raped, our brothers and sisters are kidnapped and they cannot travel through the road free again. “We are urging the Joint Task Force (JTF), Operation Delta Safe (ODS) to deploy troops in the areas where the kidnapping is happening. We will continue to protest until this problem is over.”
