The Imo State Police Command has located the site where 19 would-be National Youth Service Corps members who were kidnapped in the state are being kept, but security operatives have held off on entering the camp due to concerns that it has been rigged with improvised explosive devices.
The state’s Commissioner of Police, Audu Garba Bosso, made this known on Saturday during a media interview while providing an update on the search-and-rescue mission.
Bosso stated that the police deployed drones on Friday to find the suspected camp after security operatives tracked the kidnappers into the bush.
He added, however, that the security agencies were proceeding with caution since intelligence suggested the camp had been planted with IEDs.
“Any moment, we’ll still move into the bush. Yesterday, we were in the bush; we trailed them up to a particular location.
“But at that point in time, we couldn’t move in to where the coordinate showed us where they are because we ran drones yesterday. And the drone actually showed us exactly their location.
“But our predicament is that with the intel we have, the IED is—the camp is mined with IEDs,” the commissioner said.
Bosso stated that the security agencies were preparing to move into the area with heavy equipment, including bulldozers and armored personnel carriers, in an effort to rescue the victims safely.
“We are moving in there with high, you know, high-velocity vehicles, that is, bulldozers. We’re moving in with bulldozers and APCs to see how we’re going to rescue these victims unhurt,” he added.
This development occurred two days after gunmen kidnapped prospective corps members who were travelling from Ibadan, Oyo State, to orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
On Thursday, the victims were in two buses when the attackers struck along the Owerri-Onitsha Road in the Umunoha area of Imo State.
Isiah Akpan, the Managing Director of Uko Akwa Ibom Motors Nigeria Limited, had informed Saturday PUNCH that the abductors seized 19 passengers, all of them prospective corps members, and took them into the bush.
According to him, the drivers managed to escape and alerted security personnel at a nearby checkpoint, which led security agencies to begin searching the area.
Reports say the abductors have demanded N50m for each of the 19 victims, totalling N950m, and have reached some families through the phones of their abducted relatives.
One of the victims’ mothers, Mrs. Oladosu, had told the press that the abductors used her daughter’s phone to contact her family and that the family saw some of the victims during a video call.
The Imo State Police Command had earlier stated that 10 victims were rescued, though its spokesperson, Henry Okoye, was unable to confirm whether those rescued were among the abducted prospective corps members.
This latest development suggests that security operatives have pinpointed the location of the remaining victims as efforts to secure their release continue.
