Councillor-elect, cousin beheaded in Benue

 Paul Ojile, a councillor-elect, and his cousin have been beheaded in Orokam district of Ogbadibo Local Government Area of Benue State.

They went missing on Thursday but their were recovered on Friday morning.

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Our correspondent reports that the deceased councillor-elect and his cousin whose name was not yet given at the time of this report, formed part of the security team that earlier went on a rescue mission of an abducted victim in the area.

Ojile was waiting to be inaugurated into the council next month before his sudden death.

Chairman of Ogbadigbo LGA, Prince Samuel Onuh, told our correspondent that the deceased was a hunter who alongside his colleagues joined a security operation to tame rising incidents of kidnapping in the locality.

Onuh said in recent times, there had been several kidnap with the latest which happened on Thursday, adding that the rescue team actually effected the arrest of two kidnappers and rescued a victim before they later discovered that two persons among them were missing.

“There was a kidnap yesterday (Thursday); actually in the last three days, kidnappers have been troubling the area, there had been incessant kidnapping in the local government. They left from one community in Owukpa and they went to Orokam; on their way, they kidnapped one man.

“The councillor-elect who lives in the village is a hunter. Himself, his cousin, other hunters and the vigilante with Operation Zenda (a police outfit) had entered into the forest to see if they could rescue the man that was kidnapped; it was when they were to return yesterday that they noticed two of them were missing but they were able to arrest two of the kidnappers. It was this morning that they were able to check again and found their lifeless bodies – the councillor elect and his cousin,” the chairman narrated.

He also said that, “the arrested kidnappers were taken to Makurdi by Operation Zenda.

Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) for the Benue Command, SP Catherine Anene, told journalists in Makurdi, that Operation Zenda had brought the arrested suspects to Makurdi but that she was yet to get details of the incident.