SOME yet-to-be-identified gunmen abducted four Chinese railway workers on Wednesday in Odeda Local Government Area (LGA) of Ogun State, killing a policeman in the process.
Spokesperson for the Ogun State Police Command Abimbola Oyeyemi confirmed the incident and identified the abductees as workers on the ongoing Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge railway project.
In a phone conversation with The ICIR, Oyeyemi described the deceased policeman as a security detail attached to the expatriates but was unable to identify his name at the time of filing this report.
“The Chinese are our railway workers, they are working on our railway terminus construction site. The kidnappers came and it is like they ambushed them. They even killed a policeman that was attached to them, and they kidnapped the Chinese,” he said.
According to a report, some village youths had chased the gunmen into the forests in a bid to rescue the victims, but their efforts did not yield results.
The police spokesperson, however, stated that the police were doing their best to ensure the timely release of the kidnapped expatriates.
“We are on it. We believe hopefully that we’re going to get them,” he said.
As a result of the declining security in Nigeria, kidnapping for ransom has fast become the order of the day.
Elder Statesman Wole Soyinka had, on Monday, lamented that kidnapping had become a business in the Western corridors of Lagos, Ogun, Kwara and other states.
Soyinka argued that the creation of a regional security outfit, Western Nigeria Security Network codenamed Operation Amotekun, was a result of the desperation of the people due to the rising spate of insecurity in the country.
Ijeoma Opara is a journalist with The ICIR. Reach her via [email protected] or @ije_le on Twitter.