Vigilante hunters in Yagba West have apprehended 3 Fulani ‘Bororo’ robbery kingpins terrorizing travelers along Kwara border towns of Eruku/Pategi.
The arrests were effected 48 hours after a youngster from Egbe was matcheted and eventually shot dead along Egbe-Pategi road on Monday.
A group of youngsters involved in timber business was said to have been ambushed on Monday evening between Okoloke and Egbe by the assailants armed with machetes and guns. The travelers who rode on motorcycles were said to have obeyed when ordered to stop and lie face down, with the exception of the deceased who instead opted to outsmart the robbers. Consequently, an eyewitness account said his left harm was chopped off by cutlass before he was shot at on the chest. He died instantly.
News of his killing had thrown Egbe and the entire Yagba West into fresh panic.
Nemesis however caught up with the assailants when they walked into the dragnets of the Local Government vigilante hunters who had gone combing the bushes since the incident occurred.
When I visited the new Director of Local Government, Yagba West Council in his office yesterday, he confirmed the arrest of three ‘Bororos’. He also said the arrested persons confessed to committing that Monday’s dastardly act.
Some surviving victims of the robbery incident were also invited to the Divisional Police Station at Odo-Ere, where the robbers are kept for identification. He admitted that but for the efforts of the police, the arrested persons would have been killed by the mob. He said keeping them was necessary to aid investigations into their hideouts, mode of operation as well as getting the names and list of their partners in crime. He disclosed that the arrested persons would also join a special joint police/military squad deployed from Lokoja yesterday in locating their hideouts.
Credits: Ralph Omololu Agbana
