How tanker driver escaped from kidnappers den in Taraba

A petrol tanker driver, abducted by kidnappers at a police check point near Wukari Taraba State, midnight Sunday has escaped from the kidnappers’ den.

The driver, Yakubu Umar, told Daily Trust in an interview in Wukari that he was driving his tanker along Zaki-Biam-Wukari road when he ran into the kidnappers at a police check point.

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He said there was a barricade at the check points and he applied the break thinking it was the police that were checking vehicles.

Umar stated that it was after he stopped he realised it was not the police but kidnappers.

He said the kidnappers, who were four in number and well armed, ordered him out of the vehicle and two of the bandits searched and removed all his valuable, including money from his seat and took him inside the bush, leaving his boys behind.

Umar explained that the kidnappers blind folded him and also tide his legs and hands and locked him inside a round hut.

He said the kidnappers’ den was not far away from the road where he was abducted as he could hear the sound of vehicles passing, adding that they collected his phone and made contact with his family for ransom.

According to him, it was at about 4am the environment where he was kept was quite and he managed to untie his legs and hands and forced the room open.

“I found myself in a thick forest and I started running and after a while, l found myself in a Tiv village in Benue State,” he said.

He said it was the Tiv in the village who made contact with tanker drivers’ union in Wukari who later came and took him to Wukari.

The chairman of Wukari branch of Nigerian Union petrol Tankers Drivers, Malam Sale Wuziri, told Daily Trust that when the incident happened, they reported the matter to the police division in Wukari and drove the vehicle into a patrol station in the town for safe keeping.

The police spokesperson in the State, DSP David Misal, confirmed the incident and said that the hoodlums took advantage of absence of police at the check points to perpetrate their crimes.