Gunmen kidnap ex-NULGE chairman in Edo

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A former chairman of the Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) Akoko-Edo branch, Alhaji Jimoh Olumoye, has been kidnapped on his way to farm.

Alhaji Olumoye was abducted along Igarra-Okpe Road on Sunday afternoon while driving in his car to pick his children from the farm.

A member of the family who pleaded anonymity said his children raised alarm when they saw their father’s car with the doors opened and his phones abandoned.

According to him, “His children had gone to the farm early in the morning and he promised to go and picked them in the afternoon before he would attend his family meeting.

“The children waited endlessly for their father and when they did not see him, decided to be trekking home. On their way home, they met his car on the road with the four doors opened and his mobile phone abandoned. After searching for their father fruitlessly, they decided to now come home to inform the family.

“We have been praying for his safety, we are worried because he is a civil servant who also farms to augment whatever he is earning as a civil servant. We are appealing that his abductors release him unhurt. He has an aged mother and everybody is scared of breaking the news to her, we are really worried”.

The source said the family has lodged a formal complaint at the Igarra police station.

It was gathered that several vigilance groups in Igarra, Ojah, Ogugu and environs in Akoko-Edo local government area and their counterparts in Owan East have been mobilized to comb the forests around the area.

A member of the vigilance group said, “It was only the State Security Service that responded to our call immediately we heard of the incident and called them. We have mobilised our members and we trying to track them down in the forests so they would move out to other states close to us.

How, the Edo State Police spokesman, DSP Chidi Nwabuzor, could not be reached for comments.