No fewer than four officials of a local cooperative society were on Sunday reportedly kidnapped while a huge amount of money was carted away by suspected gunmen at Tiine Nune village in Ukum local government area of Benue State.
The people were said to be having their weekly ‘adashi’ (contributions) meeting when the gunmen dressed in military uniforms stormed the venue, shot sporadically to the air, made away with the money and kidnapped some officials of the group.
According to local, who did not want to be mentioned in print, “the incident happened at about 8:00 this morning when the gunmen came into the village on motorcycles and they shot sporadically possibly to scare people away before they could carry the money and later went away with four officials of the group.”
Chairman of Ukum local government, Steve Ayua, who confirmed that gunmen stormed the venue of the meeting, however, could not confirm whether people were kidnapped or not.
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Ayua said: “Some people came in from Adako side in Katsina-Ala axis to rob local people who were doing adashi. The robbers were in military camouflage. They came and were shooting sporadically to scare everybody and this made people to run away, they carried the money but no one can ascertain how much they carried.
“Also, I am not sure whether they took people away or they (people) also ran for their lives.
“I cannot confirm to you now that anybody was abducted but the local people gathered and were having their adashi. The people came on motorbikes from Adako side in Katsina-Ala LGA.
“But the people that have not seen two local officials of the adashi. They (people) are not sure whether they ran away or were kidnapped. Police are on it and would be able to confirm if actually, it is abduction.”
Meanwhile, efforts to get the Police Public Relations Officer, SP Catherine Anene, were not successful as she did not pick up her phone when our correspondent called.
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