By Steve Oni, Ilorin
A big-time farmer in Oke Onigbin community, Isin LGA, Kwara state, Alhaji Alaga Olayemi, was reportedly kidnapped Wednesday by unknown gunmen suspected to be Fulani herdsmen.
According to some villagers in the community who confided in this medium, Olayemi and his two aides were ambushed by their attackers around 7 pm while returning home from their maize farm near Oke Onigbin.
While the two aides were lucky to have escaped being abducted, their boss was, however, not that lucky as he was reported to have been immediately whisked off by the assailants. The two aides, however, were said to have escaped with severe injuries they sustained from matchete cuts inflicted on them by the marauders.
It was gathered that the dastardly incident has thrown Oke Onigbin community and its environs into tension as villagers are reportedly now living in great fear.
It was also gathered that the abductors are yet to contact the family of the kidnapped farmer or the police for demand of any ransom to be paid.
One of the villagers, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said: "It is lamentable that Kwara South region, hitherto a haven place, has now turned to be a habitable place for criminal elements since few months back while government and security agencies have not been able to arrest the situation. Several civil society organisations, including Ekiti Igbomina Youth Agenda, have raised the alarm and pleaded with the government to take urgent steps at arresting the situation but the government appears to be treating the growing insecurity within Kwara South with levity.
"There was a report that a monarch who was kidnapped by gunmen from far away Ekiti state was rescued in Kwara state by combined operatives of Amotekun and local hunters. This is highly embarrassing and only suggests that the three tiers of government and the security agencies are sleeping on issues of insecurity across the country. We therefore call on the administration of Governor AbdulRahman AbulRazaq to rise up to the occasion by nipping the issue of insecurity in the bud across the state since no meaningful development can be made where there is anarchy and chaos."
The kidnap incident was, however, confirmed by the Kwara state Police Command's spokesman, SP Okasanmi Ajayi.
His words: "One Alhaji Alaga Olayemi was reportedly kidnapped in his farm at Oke Onigbin by seven unknown gunmen, intensive effort to rescue him has been activated by the Commissioner of Police Mohammed Lawal Bagega."
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