The Biraidu Development Elites, a respected sociocultural group, has sent an urgent plea to Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Ahmed Usman Ododo, warning that Abocho and nearby villages in Dekina Local Government Area are sliding into a kidnappers’ paradise.
In a blunt statement signed by spokesperson Mr. John Momoh, the group said bandits now treat the forests and back roads around Abocho, Ofafu and Adiyele as a free corridor for moving victims grabbed from Ofu LGA and the busy Abuja–South-East highway.
The elites complain that most attacks never make the news, leaving residents feeling invisible. In the past two months alone, search parties have pulled several unidentifiable bodies from the bush.
“Abocho has turned into a depot where kidnappers stash or shuffle their captives,” the statement said. “They operate almost openly because no one stops them.”
Economic and Social Collapse
Markets that once buzzed on market days now sit empty; farmers and traders have fled. The group says the local economy, built on farming and small trade, has flat-lined.
Roads are barely passable and there is no working primary-health centre, so residents feel “cut off from the rest of the state.”
“Abocho has simply fallen off the map. No roads, no hospitals, and now no markets. We are begging Governor Ododo to treat this as an emergency,” Momoh said.
The Elites want a joint security task force sent in immediately – regular army patrols to clear the forest fringes, a mobile-police unit stationed along the transit routes and state support for local vigilantes so they can feed solid tips to the formal forces
“We still trust Governor Ododo can keep Kogi safe. Abocho must not be allowed to disappear through neglect,” the group said.
