By Amos Aar
A Chief Lecturer at the Benue State Polytechnic, Ugbokolo (BenPoly), Engr Oche Enenche, has been killed by an armed gang along Otukpo-Enugu highway while the President of the Benue State chapter of the All Nigeria Confederation of Principals of Secondary Schools (ANCOPSS), Comrade John Patrick Abah, was kidnapped at the same spot and the same day, Friday, November 11, 2022.
Confirming the killing of Engr Enenche, Media Director of the institution, Mr Emmanuel Ameh, who visited the deceased’s family in Ugbokolo on Monday briefed National Record on how his colleague was killed as narrated to him by wife of the murdered lecturer.
Ameh said both Engr Enenche and his wife “were on their way from Otukpo at about 4:30pm or thereabouts. While approaching Ogblega Junction after Olengbecho-Eke, some young men came from the bush, flagged and stopped them. They stopped quite well and before they knew what was happening, some young men came from the bush and before the husband could ask what was happening, he was shot dead. That was how they entered the bush and the husband was lying dead by the road side.”
According to the Director of Media, the bereaved wife was devastated by the brutal murder of her husband and could not speak further.
Engr Enenche was at a point an Acting Rector of the polytechnic before the appointment of Dr O.B. Ella, now late.
ANCOPSS president, kidnapped, freed
The ANCOPSS State president, Comrade Abah, who was abducted on the same day Engr Enenche was killed has been released. Comrade Abah is the current principal of Government Secondary School located in Okpoga, the headquarters of Okpokwu LGA.
National Record visited the Makurdi residence of the ANCOPSS president in the early hours of Tuesday, 15th November, 2022 and found that he was released on Sunday night.
Speaking with our correspondent, Comrade Abah said he was kidnapped last Friday at Ogbodo Junction, along Otukpo-Enugu highway, while traveling in a commercial vehicle and was released on Sunday night. He however declined to state whether he paid ransom or not.
“My brother, let me not talk about that one”, Abah declined to respond to a question bordering on ransom payment.
Abah, who was former Principal, Community Secondary School, Otukpa from where he was posted to his current location, explained that his car developed fault and he joined a commercial vehicle from which the abductors kidnapped him and one other man and took them into the bush where they were manhandled on the first and second days but on the third day, the hoodlums were soft with them.
Asked what happened to the rest of the passengers and whether the kidnap of the two of them was a target, Abah said he didn’t know exactly.
Comrade Abah expressed shock that the kidnappers have been operating at the same spot between Olengbecho-Ekeh and Ogbodo Junction for a long time now, to the knowledge of both the police and military personnel who mounted a checkpoint there. He wondered why the security personnel could not comb the surrounding areas knowing that the spot has become a notorious den for kidnappers.
“Many people have been killed at that junction. No week passes without somebody being killed. Even that very day that I was kidnapped, they killed a senior lecturer of the Benue State Polytechnic, Ugbokolo. Thank God that I didn’t struggle with them, they would have killed me. They shoot and kill anybody who tries to run away from them,” Abah stated.
Abah, who called on government and security operatives to dislodge the kidnappers from Ogbodo Junction and environs as well as other places in the state, wondered why killings and kidnappings were on the increase in the area without any action from the security agencies to stop the criminality.
State Police Public Relations Officer, SP. Catherine Sewuese Anene, did not respond when National Record contacted her twice to confirm the two incidents.
People who ply Otukpo-Enugu highway are now scared following the routine attacks and kidnappings that have been taking place on the highway for quite some time now.
The public is worried that these acts of criminality have continued to happen even when military personnel have been deployed and mounted road blocks along that route right from Otukpo to Otukpa.
A motorist, who pleaded anonymity, told National Record in Otukpo that on 2nd November, 2022, an armed gang who dressed in police uniform stood at a checkpoint mounted by the police along the Otukpo-Enugu highway and robbed drivers and passengers at about 10pm when the police closed from the road. A resident of Adoka in Otukpo local government area corroborated the motorist, saying hoodlums have been using that strategy for a long time now.
Nevertheless, there has been no report that the police have come back at night to engage the hoodlums even as the night robbery at police checkpoint has become a routine operation.
Also reacting to this unfortunate development, the Benue State ANCOPSS president, Comrade Abah who was kidnapped last week asked whether the police are supposed to close from their duty on roads at night.
“I wonder the kind of security we have in Nigeria! Are they even supposed to close?”, he pondered!
Residents of Otukpo and Okpokwu have cried out over the increasing bloodshed in the area and have called on the government and security agencies to urgently intervene.
Edumoga Youth Movement (EYM) in a statement signed by its national president, Engr Geoffrey Owotikwu, on Monday 14th November, 2022 said “in just one week, we lost one Hon. Udah from Amufu in Ojigo council ward who was brutally butchered beyond recognition by unknown gunmen and Engr Oche Enenche, a lecturer with Benue State Polytechnic, Ugbokolo, Edumoga in the Department of Electrical/Electronics Engineering via gun shot on a High Way.
“We equally call on our political leaders and traditional rulers to wade into the situation and put a stop to the issue of insecurity in our dear Edumoga District and Okpokwu LGA by extension,” the statement reads in part.
