Gunmen suspected to be bandits have intercepted some vehicles on Kaduna-Kachia Road in Kaduna State, abducting no fewer than 19 travellers and taking them in the forest.
SaharaReporters learnt that the gunmen, who were clad in military uniform, waylaid the passengers at Idon village in the Kajuru Local Government Area of the state on Friday night and carried out the attack.
Witnesses said a local government councillor from Southern Kaduna was among the victims, but was later found to have run out of the bush.
It was not clear yet if he paid any ransom to the abductors.
The councillor and a few other escapees were found at Mararaban Kajuru where they were assisted by natives.
“The attack was on Friday night. The gunmen came in large numbers. They are believed to be bandits, but they also had military camouflage. We thought it was a military checkpoint. They abducted many people, so some of them managed to escape from the bush, because it was in the night, but some others were not lucky,” a witness said.
Kaduna State has recently witnessed an upsurge in banditry and kidnapping incidents – a situation which made the Nigerian Army to deploy its personnel to the Kaduna-Abuja Road.
Just on Wednesday, the army announced that it had deployed 300 female soldiers to the notorious Kaduna-Abuja Road to tackle the rising spate of banditry, kidnapping and other crimes along the expressway.
The army had drawn female soldiers from the 1 Division, Kaduna State, and said they were attached to the Nigerian Army Women Corps.
The first batch of the troops were formally received on Wednesday by the state governor, Nasir El-Rufai, at their Kakau base on the highway.
The governor expressed optimism that, with the deployment of the soldiers, the insecurity along the highways would soon be a thing of the past.
It is not clear yet whether security agencies would take a similar measure on the Kaduna-Kachia Road.
