Gunmen attacked a community in Taraba state on Tuesday and kidnapped a traditional ruler and 22 others, residents have disclosed.
Umaru Nyala, the chief of Yorro chiefdom in Pupule, Yoro Local Government Area, was kidnapped alongside the 22 others in the early hours of Tuesday.
Amongst those kidnapped are two police officers – a sergeant attached to the monarch and an inspector who was on casual leave, residents said.
A resident who escaped the attack, Dabang Major, said that the bandits who rode motorcycles entered Pupule town in the early hours of Tuesday.
Major said the bandits, who arrived in the town around 1 a.m., shot indiscriminately and then went from house to house where they abducted the second-class chief and the other victims.
He also explained that those kidnapped included a pregnant woman and children.
“We heard gunshots around 1 a.m. and everybody went into hiding because we knew that the kidnappers were there for abduction.
“They went from house to house and abducted people including our traditional ruler and a pregnant woman.
“I was not aware of the number of those abducted until in the morning when I came out to hear that our district head was among the victims,” he said.
It was also gathered that in the same Pupule axis, around Apawa, an 18-seater Toyota bus was found abandoned with no passengers inside last Saturday.
A police source said they suspect that the occupants were kidnapped by bandits on Friday night and evacuated to the bush.
The state’s Police Public Relations Officer, Usman Abdullahi, who confirmed the latest incident, said officers have been deployed to the area to ensure the victims are rescued unhurt.
The security agents are making efforts to rescue the district head and the other victims,” he said.
Kidnapping for ransom is rampant in parts of Taraba and many other parts of Nigeria. The kidnapping is carried out by different armed groups with hardly any link to one another.
