Armed kidnappers and robbers have continued to attack motorists/residents in Ugbolu/Illah expressway in Aniocha North local government area of Delta state.
While six persons have been reportedly kidnapped and released within a month of their operations, it was gathered that travellers and motorists on the expressway have continued to express fear of the unknown and have appealed to the law enforcement agencies to come to their aid with a view to ensuring their safety, especially during night fall.
Their modus operandi, investigation revealed, is to cut down trees on the bad spot on the road where it will be possible for motorists plying the road to slow down and the process they are attacked at gunpoint and dispossessed of their belongings.
Within the month of September, several unsuspecting travellers have been attacked and robbed of their belongings by these armed robbers who often pose as road maintenance in communities’ workers and under the disguised, they make fortunes and disappeared into the thin air.
Some of the victims who spoke to Journalists in Asaba on Friday, one of them, Chief Donatus Isioma said” the expressway is now a den of armed robbers and Kidnappers, and it’s an everyday affairs as they rob and kidnap people at random, I was robbed twice on the road and they took money from me at gunpoint”
Further investigation revealed that often times persons kidnapped are taken through the Ugbolu/ Illah expressway to an unknown destination before ransoms are established with the victims’ relations and in most cases the victims are killed and their corpses dumped at the bush path.
But the police Commissioner in the state, Adeleke Adeyinka who confirmed the incident to Journalists in Asaba, said that the police were working hard to ensure those behind the activities are arrested and warned that it will no longer be businesses as usual for criminals operating across the state.
He said: “the Ugbolu Illah expressway is under control and the police are working hard to ensure those behind the activities are brought to book and we assure Deltans including travellers on the road of their safety as we shall soon arrest the culprits and hoodlums including those behind the activities”
