14th November, 2017
Jethro Ibileke/Benin
The orgy of violence in Edo state has continued to claim the lives of several persons in the last few days.
In the first incident, four operatives of the Edo State Police Command who were on patrol duty were allegedly attacked by unknown gunmen who shot and killed one of them on the spot and injured three others, in an early morning ambush on Tuesday.
The gunmen also set their victims’ patrol van ablaze at the scene of the incident which occurred at Ovia River bridge, along Benin-Iguobazuwa road, in Ovia South West local government area of the state.
The gunmen were said to have arrived the bank of the river in two speed boats and opened fire on the four policemen who were on patrol.
It was learnt that the officers who returned fire escaped with their guns into a nearby bush abandoning their Hilux van at the mercy of their attackers who set it on fire.
In another incident, suspected cultists have allegedly beheaded a middle-aged man in a swift reprisal attack, for the killing of another, bringing to two casualties recorded within few hours of bloody clash at Uwelu area of Benin City, last Sunday.
This is even as policemen in Ogida Division have picked up a fresh head of a young man at Iyobosa junction, Off Uwelu road, few hours after they recovered the body of another boy who was killed and dumped at the same junction by the warring cultists.
The first victim, identified simply as Wisdom, was shot dead and dumped at Iyobosa junction about 7:21 pm, last Sunday.
It was gathered that some of his cult members in the area swiftly mobilized, invaded the residence of a member of a rival cult group in Ayebelo area of Egor, identified as Ogbe, severed his head which they eventually dumped at the same Iyobosa junction where the corpse of their member was earlier dumped and recovered by the police.
As at the time of filing the report, neither the State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Johnson Babatunde Kokumo nor the police command’s Public Relations Officer, DSP Moses Nkombe, was available to comment on the incidents.
But a source at the command headquarters who did not want to be named, said no policeman was killed in the ambush, even as he said that police had intensified investigation into the attacks.