The four journalists abducted included Wahab Oba, Sylvester Okereke, Adolphus Okonkwo, and Shola Oyeyepo. They have since been held by the kidnappers along with driver, Yekini Aziz, at a village called Umuafor Ukwu in Obingwqa Local Government Area of Abia State.
The National Secretary of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Shuaibu Usman Leman, told Sunday Trust last night that the police with other local and foreign security agents were involved in the search.
The NUJ scribe revealed that “A hide-out was found in the forest with five stolen vehicles, including a jeep with multiple bullet holes. No one was found in the hide-out, but it was alleged to be used by kidnappers who fled before the arrival of the police. The forest was thick with multiple bush paths wide enough for cars to pass. Local communities refused to cooperate. People ran away from strangers. Mountains in the forests give more hide-outs to suspects thereby making it difficult for the search and rescue operation.”
In a related development, armed bandits suspected to be members of a kidnap syndicate terrorizing the Abia and Imo states last Friday kidnapped two expatriates in Imo State.
The incident, Sunday Trust learnt, occurred at about 5pm last Friday around the boundary between Eziala Obiangwu in Ngor Okpala and Enyiogugu in Aboh Mbaise LGAs of Imo State, as the expatriates were driving out of the airport.
It was the second kidnap along the road linking Sam Mbakwe International Cargo Airport (SMICA) and Owerri/Umuahia Road since April 2010.
Sources around the scene of the incident said that the hoodlums who drove in a green Toyota Jeep attacked the two ‘whitemen’ when they double-crossed the Toyota Camry car conveying the abducted expatriates.
It was learnt that the kidnappers, on forcing the vehicle carrying their victims to a halt, opened fire and shot sporadically into the air to scare away villagers and subdued their victims before transferring them into their jeep and drove off.
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