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Robbers attack Ibori’s convoy
•2 policemen killed
VINCENT ADEKOYE,
Benin
GUNMEN yesterday morning opened
fire on the convoy of Gov. James Ibori of Delta State, engaging it in a
30-minute battle and killing two policemen in the process.
One of the cops is an Inspector and was the leader of the
convoy security team.
Governor Ibori was not in the convoy at
the time of the attack which occurred about 7.30 a.m. along the Benin-Lagos
by-pass, near the Edo State capital.
Sources said providence must have guided
Gov. Ibori as he was said to have changed his mind to join the convoy in the
last minute.
State police commissioner, Mr. Paul Ochonu,
confirmed the attack and the killing of the two cops, but promised that the
assailants would be rounded up "in a few days time."
Police sources at the Ugbowo Police
Station in Benin said that the convoy ran into an ambush laid by a 13-man gun
totting youths along the by-pass.
It was gathered that the personnel in the
convoy did not know immediately that they were besieged by hoodlums, who were
later identified as robbers.
When they later realized that it was an
ambush, the sources said armed security men in the convoy opened fire on the
assailants but were overpowered by the latter who had sophisticated weapons.
One of the survivors of the attack, who
pleaded anonymity, narrated that in the heat of the gun battle, the inspector,
who was the leader of the security team, ordered his men to move away from the
scene but before they could do that, he was shot by one of the assailants who
emerged from his rear and fired with a sub-machine gun.
The other slain policeman was said to have
been shot by another man in the robbery gang.
Media Assistant to the governor, Mr. Abel
Oshewie, also confirmed the incident, describing it as a sad development.
The bullet riddled cars on the ill-fated
convoy are now parked at Government House, Benin, while the corpses of the
security details have been deposited at Central Hospital mortuary, also in
Benin.
Other persons on the convoy who were
injured were rushed to the Central Hospital.
The late Inspector was said to have
survived similar attack last year while the other police officer just got wedded
two weeks ago.
It would be recalled that similar attack
was unleashed on March 3, this year on the official convoy of Gov. George Akume
of Benue State along the Lafia-Akwanga road in Nasarawa State.
Governor Akume was on his way to Abuja to
attend a meeting of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He escaped death by the
whiskers.
But a member of the PDP Board of Trustees,
Mr. Andrew Agom who was travelling with the governor in the same car was shot
dead in the attack.
Agom, a former Managing Director of the
Nigeria Airways was felled along with one of the governor’s security details,
Sergeant Joseph Ngam.
The attack itself came less than a month after the PDP
National Vice-Chairman (South-South), Chief A.K. Dikibo was shot dead on the
Kwale-Asaba road in Delta State on his way to a party zonal caucus meeting, by
yet to be identified gunmen.
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