An unspecified number of travellers have been kidnapped on Nigeria’s independence day.
According to reports, at least 2 commercial buses were affected. The passengers and drivers were reportedly taken away by armed kidnappers.
According to an eyewitness report, the incident happened along the Onitsha–Owerri Road in Imo State.
Other vehicles travelling along the road were also reportedly affected, with passengers in some of the vehicles allegedly taken away by the kidnappers.
The exact number of people kidnapped is not yet clear.
A video shared online shows loved ones stating that some of those kidnapped are corps members who left with Uko Akwa Ibom Motors from Ibadan to travel to the places they were posted to in various states in the south-east and south-south zones.
The passengers boarded a bus at Samonda, Ibadan, with the aim of travelling to orientation camps in Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Imo, and Abia
Some distraught family members visited the park where their loved ones took off from and recorded a video informing family members of other travellers who left from the same park of what has happened.
“They carried everybody, including the driver,” a passenger who boarded a bus that managed to escape the incident said as he filmed the commercial bus abandoned by the roadside after the passengers and drivers had been abducted.
One woman narrated how her child left the park in Ibadan to travel to orientation camp in the east. She said that they received a message from her child in their family’s WhatsApp group earlier this morning, October 1st.
According to the mother, her child typed “kidnapper” and that was the last they heard. She said they have been calling her child’s number but it has remained unreachable.
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