Gunmen
believed to be members of the Ijaw group involved in illegal bunkering have been
terrorising residents of Imose in Ogun State, Nigeria.
Imose is a town in Ado ota odo
local government, Ogun state which is accessible by road through Igbesa and by
water through Adexson bus stop, Lasu road in Lagos. Accessing the area by boat
was always a preferred option by the residents due to the short distance and
cost until recently.
It all started on the
30th of May when a boat with passengers was stopped on the river by
armed strange men with a fibre boat which was not available in the area as all
the boats in the area are made of wood. It should be noted that the river isn’t
linked to imose alone as there are routes leading to Totowu (a neighbouring
town) and Agbara (a much more developed and exposed area). The armed men looted
salaries, phones and other properties belonging to passengers and even stopped
other boats passing by at that time and robbed the passengers too. According to
victims in the boat, they said the gunmen kept saying it wasn’t their fault and
that it was Buhari’s regime that made things difficult for them as they couldn’t
access pipelines to get fuel again. They left and everyone thought it was over
until they came about a week later and robbed passengers on their way to totowu
(a town very close to imose accessible by water too). According to reports,
they beat up several passengers who were stubborn and left with their valuables
as well as boat engines. Some of the victims went to the police station to
lodge complaints and they were advised to stop keeping late nights and the
Police promised to look into the matter. Nothing of such happened after then
until yesterday, 14th of June when they attacked Imose residents again and this
time, it took a different turn as 3 people were kidnapped. An eyewitness and
victim informed B.K’s Blog that all the passengers were robbed and the male
passengers were stripped in case any of them was hiding anything. After doing
that, they took 3 people who they felt were from wealthy backgrounds and it is
believed that the gunmen took them away with the expectation that close
relatives will pay to have them released. Residents of the area hope the issue
will be addressed by appropriate authorities
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