The Iwaraja (Osun State) and Efon Alaaye (Ekiti State) road has recently become a source of concern for the communities on the road stretch and Efon Local Government Area of Ekiti State, as well as the busy road users following the activities of criminals, leading to both kidnap and murder of their victims. SAM NWAOKO writes on the recent experiences there and the efforts of Efon community and security agents.
In May 2018 news began to circulate that there were kidnappings for ransom at the Iwaraja – Efon Alaaye axis of the Ekiti/Osun states’ boundary. The Iwaraja-Efon road could be described as a spur of the Ilesha – Akure highway, and it is about the most useful for travellers to Ekiti State since it was constructed in 2014, especially for those travelling from the Lagos/Ibadan axis. It is indeed the road most plied by commercial vehicles from Lagos and Ibadan route, thus it is busy.
In May this year, it became loud that the road stretch had become dangerous owing to the activities of criminals, particularly kidnappers. One of the earliest reports of kidnapping in that part of Ekiti State was the abduction of the Financial Secretary of the Ekiti State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. J. K. Oni.
The report of the kidnap of Oni, popularly known as Comrade JK Oni was received in late April, and in the night of May 1, he was released by his abductors. Efforts to decipher who his kidnappers were, the motive behind it and the circumstances of his release were unsuccessful. The Publicity Secretary of Ekiti PDP, Mr. Jackson Adebayo, who related the incident to newsmen, only said “we thank God Almighty that our financial secretary, Comrade JK Oni has been released by his kidnappers this night.”
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However, the kidnappings persisted. Soon, the crime took even a dangerous dimension. Reports of killings of victims were received. The reports came as rumours and there were difficulties in confirming them because the security agents said such reports didn’t exist then.
But as the month of May approached its denouement, the crime on the road and in that axis of Ekiti State had become a source of great concern to the users of the road, Efon community and the entire people of Ekiti State. Even the police in the state had taken some steps and increased presence in the area. But palpable tension had already enveloped communities and farmsteads in the Ekiti and Osun states’ boundary at the Iwaraja – Efon Alaaye road stretch.
The worries became real when victims’ identities emerged, and more so when they were unanimous that the perpetrators were Fulani. The reports were also that the kidnappings had become frequent on the road; and travellers began to transit in fear.
Some commercial drivers plying the road recounted the attack of May 25th, while interacting with Nigerian Tribune. They lamented that in the attack at the Iwaraja -Efon road, two women and a man were shot dead by the criminals. “It was a harrowing experience and a sorry sight,” one of them decried.
The drivers said they were held for more than one hour on the road and that it took the intervention of some soldiers from a military checkpoint at nearby Itawure to dislodge the criminals that day. But before then, the drivers said the criminals had seized the road for about an hour and had forced vehicles off the road while their operation lasted.
One of the drivers who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he was among those held up said “the bus that was indiscriminately shot at, belongs to my friend. I was going to Ibadan from Ado Ekiti. I saw that three people had lost their lives in the attack by the time we got to the scene. We saw them as we drove hurriedly by when the road was cleared by the soldiers.”
He said two of the victims were travelling in a commercial bus, and added that “we learnt that the third victim who was travelling in a private vehicle was going to Ibadan and she was killed right there, perhaps because she wouldn’t stop for them.”
According to him, “As we all waited at Fabo, the length of vehicles on the queue grew, and we were helpless. What we learnt was that the criminals had taken over the road at some point and no one dared to verify what was going on. For about one hour, we were there in apprehension and fear. These hawkers you see and traders had all bolted away and had abandoned their wares,” he quipped as he recalled the experience.
He explained that “those of us coming from Ado (Ekiti State) and those from Iwaraja (Osun State) were all held up at both ends. But after some time, two soldiers moved in from their checkpoint at Itawure and soon vehicles were free to move again.” But by then, he said three people had been shot dead and that the attackers had fled into the seemingly endless thicket and rolling, smoky hills on both sides of the road.
A relative of one of the victims of the May 25 attack, Dr Femi Olugboji, had taken to the social media to lament the loss of his younger brother in the incident. The post by Dr Olugboji, which warned road users to abandon the route, had created not just awareness but had also caused several kinds of reactions both on the social media and in the state’s body polity.
Dr Olugboji had written: “The Olugboji family of Ise-Ekiti lost one of us, Seye Olugboji, 48, to armed bandits on Friday 25th May, around Efon Alaaye on his way to Ibadan. His purse containing over 10k and few dollars and his phone and other luggage were intact.
“Two other women equally lost their lives to the same bandits. The following day, Saturday, a man was kidnapped at the same spot. They are demanding for ransom. Seye was buried on Monday 28th, to let you know that it is true. For those that pass through safely, just know that it is by grace. May we not travel on the day the armed bandits are blood thirsty.
“Let’s explore all available avenues to alert the Ekiti State government, the Presidency and security agents, including our own son in the Army about this trending scare and prevailing terrorist activities.”
The police in the state confirmed the incidences. The Ekiti Police Command also announced that by early June, they had already rescued “no fewer than 20 kidnap victims in the forest between Iwaraja in Osun State and Efon Alaaye in Ekiti State.”
The Commissioner of Police, Ekiti State Command, Ahmed Ballo, who spoke through the Public Relations Officer of the command, Mr. Caleb Ikechukwu, explained that officers and men of the command were working round the clock to apprehend the killer herdsmen and end the criminality in the area and indeed, the entire state. The command said it was not folding its arms, and that a lot had already been done to bring the perpetrators to book.
The command also confirmed that the incident at Iwaraja – Efon road, in the evening of Friday, 25th May was reported to the command and said the bandits “emerged from the bush and shot indiscriminately and in the process, three people were killed.”
The Ekiti PPRO explained that when the reports of the May 25th incident reached the command, their personnel moved in. “In the exchange of gunfire, they saw superior fire power, they took to their heels and fled into the bush. We combed the bush and eventually, we found that they had kidnapped people and we freed them. There were about 20 of the kidnap victims that were freed and some of them had been at the police command headquarters to make statements.”
The efforts of the security agencies notwithstanding, the criminals remained adamant and continued in their kidnapping of people. After their vicious attacks on passengers on May 25, they launched yet another attack in the same area in the evening of Friday, June 8 and in the morning of Saturday, June 9. In the Friday operation, they kidnapped seven people, including the manager of a popular petrol station in Ado Ekiti and his wife, as they were returning from a trip to Ibadan.
On Saturday morning, they took over the road yet again and abducted three clerics as they were descending from the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) prayer mountain in Efon Alaaye. The recurring kidnappings thus led to another round of panic.
A lucky escapee of the Friday kidnapping went to a radio station in Ado Ekiti to tell his story, and in recounting the encounter explained that the criminals were Fulani, who didn’t understand a word of Yoruba. He also announced that the menacing criminals had demanded a ransom of N20million for the release of a couple they seized, and were threatening to kill.
But on the same Saturday morning, a combined team of soldiers and policemen took on the kidnappers. “The operation was successful and the 10 abductees were freed. The security operatives brought the victims to the Ekiti police command headquarters in Ado Ekiti, where their identities and statements were taken before they were allowed to go home.
While they were there, the police headquarters soon became a beehive. The troops of 32 Artillery Brigade, in whose vehicles they were brought; the police officers and men; the rescued kidnap victims and their relatives were all busy.
The rescued victims included the three who were returning from a prayer mountain at Efon, the same Saturday morning: the manager of a petrol station in Ado Ekiti and his wife, a 20-year old man who was on his way to attend his sister’s wedding in Ado Ekiti, a Fulani cloth and gold merchant, among others.
The relatives of the released victims were effusive with their gratitude to the Army and the Police. One woman rolled on the ground at the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) section of the police command headquarters in thanksgiving to God for the successful rescue operation by the security. She said her son was a CAC cleric, and had held a programme from which some of the lucky victims were coming from.
The boyish-looking 20-year-old victim, who gave his name as Edwin Ikechukwu, seemed oblivious of the danger he had just survived. He said he was coming from Efon to Ado with his brother, for his sister’s wedding, but that his brother escaped.
He said: “I had also initially slipped away from them. But when they were just shouting ‘money! bring money!! and were threatening to shoot, I came out of hiding, thinking that was all they wanted and they would let us go.
“They are Fulani people. Two of them dressed in Army camouflage fatigue and were always threatening to shoot.”
Ikechukwu was all laughter and jokes. “They didn’t ask me and that woman (pointing at another victim) for money because they’ve seen that I’m a small boy while that woman doesn’t look like who can raise the amounts they were demanding.”
The Fulani man, who gave his name as Abdullahi Abdulrasak, said he was trading in gold and cloths. He said he was threatened with death if he revealed their conversations, “because they saw me and knew that I understood the language they were speaking.” Another of the victims told the police that they also conversed in French. “I teach French, I understood them perfectly when they discussed some issues in French. I believe they also have Yoruba accomplices because they made a phone call to someone and spoke to him in Yoruba to report their operation. The name they called the person at the other end was a Yoruba name,” she stated.
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A statement by Ojo Adenegan, Assistant Director Army Public Relations said simply: “The troops of 32 Artillery Brigade in continuation of its clearance operations at various flash and black spots in Ekiti State have rescued ten kidnapped victims inside a forest at Erio – Efon Alaaye road. Men of Nigeria Police from Efon Alaaye also participated in the operation. The victims have been handed over to the Nigerian Police at Ekiti State Command.”
The security agents sought the cooperation of the people, saying “we are using this medium to also solicit the general public to continue to cooperate with us in the area of information sharing.” The Ekiti police PRO said “the police cannot be everywhere, but the people are everywhere, so we need the help of the people. They can reach us on our Control Room hotline 08062335577.”
Efon community through the President General, Efon Alaaye Development League, Mr. Bode Fagbemiro, said the community and local government, which is one of the most impacted by the development, had taken a number of steps to complement the efforts of the security agencies in combating the attackers. “In the first instance, the presence of security agents on the road is at our instance,” Fagbemiro said.
He said: “We also have our local vigilance groups in place. We have also implored the people around there to be more vigilant. Those farmsteads are occupied by Igede people, they are the ones mostly farming in the forests, and we charged them that there’s no way things like that would be happening without their knowledge of the incidents. So we have also put them on alert to involve them, but for them to also report.”
Pained by the repeated cases of kidnapping along the road, particularly on the Iwaraja-Efon road, the Awaraja of Iwaraja Ijesa, Oba Sunday Ibironke told Nigerian Tribune that “For long, people have been mistaking the sad kidnappings and killings going on in Fabo, Efon Alaye to Iwaraja. This is not true. The construction of the road by the Federal Government caused all this misrepresentation. They titled the construction of the project Iwaraja-Efon Alaye road. It is a gateway to Ekiti State. If you are travelling to Abuja, you pass through this place. People travelling to Jos pas through this place; the same thing with people travelling to Ilorin. The kidnapppings occur in Fabo, Ekiti State. Iwaraja is in Osun State and we only share boundaries. We want the police to ensure that they have a post here. We do not have one.”
When contacted over security challenges and alleged non-presence of security agents around Iwaraja axis of Ijesa zone, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) of Osun State Police command, Mrs Folasade Odoro said “we have our men stationed there. It is not true that they are not there.”
She stated that “we have our men stationed at Iwaraja. I am telling you that we have a point there and our men are stationed there. All across the whole state, we have points where policemen are stationed”.
The Efon community, he said had held several meetings with security chiefs, including the Commissioner of Police; community leaders and the monarch, the Obalufon Alayemoore. He said “one of the problems is that the communities are bounded by large forests, and they are porous. Iwaraja is not part of Efon but the farms are linked and so is it with Erio. We are working hard to ensure that our good name is preserved.”
Traders in Fabo and in some of the farmsteads that line the road said they knew that arrests have been made by the police, and that the security presence on the road has increased considerably, but they want the old times back.
A yam trader at Fabo said: “When they attack, we flee from here and abandon our wares. Most of us have fled the farmsteads that line the road. We have all abandoned Araromi Efon. But now, there are soldiers on the Iwaraja -Efon road on patrol. There is also better police presence, we are hoping for the best.”
Additional report by Oluwole Ige
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