Breaking: Trailer-load of Suspected Fulani Gunmen Attack Travellers on Ilesha-Ife Highway, Scores Injured

Ololade Adeyanju/

A trailer-load of gunmen suspected to be Hausa-Fulanis attacked travellers on the Ife-Ilesha highway this evening.

NewsmakersNG learnt that the trailer conveying the attackers suddenly stopped in the middle of the highway at Ikoyi town in Osun State about 6.45pm, while the gunmen disembarked and started shooting at everyone in sight.

The Public Relations Officer of the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Adegbenro Adebanjo, whose wife and son were caught up in the attack, gave an account of the incident in a Facebook post.

Read his account which he entitled, Insecurity: We are all in Trouble, below.

The call came in around 7:30 PM on Sunday, May 5,2019 …Daddy, daddy, marauders suspected to be Fulani herdsmen attacked the vehicle my mummy and my brother were traveling in.

Where, how? The caller, who is my first son, explained that according to information gleaned from his brother, who managed to escape with his phone the marauders targeted the travellers on the highway.

From what I was able to piece together it was a clinical operation by professionals.

At about 6:45pm on the Ilesha-Ife-Ibadan Expressway a trailer loaded with some men suddenly blocked the road around Ikoyi town and some men jumped out and started shooting sporadically. Mayhem ensued as vehicles rammed into one another while occupants exited through windows and other openings in desperate dash for safety in the bush.

The marauders who spoke in Hausa unleashed mayhem on the hapless travellers demanding for money and other valuables. They pursued those who fled deep into the bush beating and harassing them in the process while shooting continuously to show that they meant business.

Some twenty minutes after help came through the Police who engaged the marauders in a shootout and succeeded in forcing them to beat a hasty retreat.

Mercifully most of the travellers including my wife and son who were bruised and battered both physically and psychologically live to tell the tale of the harrowing experience.

Some have not been that lucky including Onukaba Adinoyi Ojo a former Managing Director of the Daily Times who was killed in similar circumstances some years back.

There are countless tales of broken limbs and heads and mortal wounds resulting in deaths as kidnappers and marauders of different hue and persuasion hold the country by the jugular.

Nigeria, yes all of us are in trouble. The fact that military men are also abandoning the Kaduna-Abuja road to scramble for trains is indicative that we are in deeper trouble security wise.

This piece is not about politics. It is to jolt us to speak out and to TELL us that nobody and no road is immune from such devilish attacks.

But for God’s divine mercy and intervention, may be two members of my family would have become casualties of the growing insecurity in the land.

Now is the time for concerted efforts to deal with the growing monster. The country’s security architecture needs a surgical operation NOW.

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