No fewer than 50 wedding guests traveling along the Sokoto-Zamfara road were abducted by bandits.
Those abducted include Telephone Marketers at the popular Bebeji Plaza in Gusau.
It was gathered that they were returning to Gusau on Saturday after attending a wedding of their colleague in Sokoto State when the incident happened between Tureta-Bakura road around 6 PM.
The vehicles conveying the wedding guests were a Toyota coaster bus belonging to the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), a Gusau Local Government Secretariat staff vehicle, and two other private vehicles.
Ashiru Zurmi, Secretary of Union of Communication, Zamfara State while narrating the incident to journalists in Gusau on Sunday said one of the vehicles conveying the guests developed a fault at Tureta in Sokoto state and it was fixed by an automobile mechanic after about 40 minutes.
He said the terrorists attacked the vehicles after the repair of the faulty vehicle along the Tureta-Bakura road and over 50 persons were abducted.
Zurmi noted that more than 20 persons later managed to escape, while some of them sustained various degrees of injuries.
“It happened that their motor developed a fault at Tureta and they got a mechanic; for about 40 minutes, he assisted them and got the motor repaired; they started coming to Zamfara but within the Tureta and Bakura axis, the kidnappers ambushed them; over 50 people were abducted but Alhamdulilah over 20 people escaped,” Zurmi said.
He confirmed that 30 members are currently in captivity and the abductors have contacted the members of their Union, confirming that they are with them.
“We have identified thirty members that are still captive, luckily today they used the phones of those captives (about five of our members) to call us; they only notified us that they are with them,” he said.
According to him, no ransom has been demanded yet by the bandits.
The Secretary of the Union also suspected the involvement of informants who he said might have notified the kidnappers about their movement.
“Definitely something like that happened; we have that in our minds that there was an informant that gave the information to the bandits to attack them because it was just only them, other passenger cars were passing but they did not care about them, they only concentrated on the coaster bus that has Zamfara Government number,” he said.
Zurmi pleaded to relevant authorities for urgent intervention and to ensure the safe return of the abductees.
He also gives a 48-hour ultimatum for security agencies and government authorities to ensure the rescue of the abductees.
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