Fear Grips Kwara Community as Gunmen Abducts Petrol Dealer, Manager …. Demands N200m Ransom 

By Omowumi Omotosho

A wave of tension has swept through Gbugbu, a town in Edu Local Government Area of Kwara State, following the abduction of a prominent fuel station owner and his manager.

The victims, identified as Alhaji Abbas and Abubakar Issa, were taken by armed assailants on Friday after concluding the day’s work at Daniyan Shaba Global Investment Filling Station. The attackers, who reportedly fled with an undisclosed amount of cash, launched the assault shortly after the station closed for the evening.

The abductors, who were armed came on motorcycles, as they set Abbas’s vehicle ablaze before disappearing with their him and his manager. They later reached out to the victims’ families with a staggering demand of N200 million for their release.

This isn’t the first time Abbas has been targeted. According to local sources, he had previously escaped a similar attack, but this latest incident has struck a deeper chord in the community.

“This is not the first time Alhaji Abbas has been attacked,” a source familiar with the situation disclosed, adding that “the fact that they targeted him again, and this time successfully abducted him along with his manager, is deeply worrying.”

Eyewitness accounts indicated the kidnappers retreated into the dense forest nearby, widely believed to be a haven for criminal groups operating in the region.

Community members are now calling for immediate action from security agencies and the Kwara State government to put an end to the growing insecurity plaguing the area.

One eyewitness, who spoke under anonymity, shared deep concern over the implications for local agriculture: “We are entering the rainy season, and our farmers need to go to their farmlands,” the eyewitness stated lamenting that “If this insecurity continues to loom over us, it will force them to abandon their farms, which will have severe consequences for our community.”

However, the Kwara State Police Commissioner of Police CP Adekimi Ojo in a text received by Dailypost Newspaper’s reporter, confirmed the incident.

The commission of police said, “the state police command is aware and already working on the phone number used to demand the ransom.”