Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha
Onitsha, the commercial nerve centre of Anambra State, has been under siege of recent by the suspected ‘One-Chance’ robbers. These mini-bus robbers have been terrorizing the city for some time now.
These criminals seem to have devised this means of robbery immediately after the state government banned the use of commercial motorcycle otherwise known as ‘Okada’ in the commercial city and other places in the state.
The robbers operate late at night and early in the morning in buses or tricycles otherwise known as ‘Keke’ when the roads were less busy and lonely.
Their victims are the traders, mostly women who leave their homes very early to go to buy goods, which they would retail in their shops or vegetable markets later in the morning.
Other victims are travelers who leave their houses to board early morning buses to Lagos, Abuja, Kano and other places, as well as those who return from travel very late at night.
Their mode of operation is that they use one of them usually a woman to convince the prospective passengers/victims that they are genuine and to avoid suspicion. And after loading their bus or Keke, they will drive to a lonely place to rob the passengers and after push them out from the vehicle and zoom off.
Last month, a young man who was picked at Nkpor, Idemili North Local Government Area, was robbed at gunpoint inside the mini-bus he boarded, midway to his destination at Upper Iweka.
An eyewitness said that on getting to the MCC junction along the Onitsha/Enugu Expressway, the robbers pushed him out of the bus and he was over-ran by an oncoming vehicle and he died on the spot.
He said that the robbers sped off and before on-lookers could understand what happened, the bus had disappeared.
The incident was said to have attracted sympathizers and onlookers who gathered to have a glimpse of the dead man and for possible identification, but they could not identify him until the police reportedly came and evacuated the corpse.
Another victim, a girl who boarded a bus from Upper Iweka to Nkpor was immediately after their bus passed the Army Barracks gate, along the expressway, robbed and pushed out of the bus.
It was gathered that as she fell down, people who saw what happened rushed and helped her and blood was gushing out from her nose just as she sustained other minor bruises on her arms and legs and was, therefore, rushed to the hospital.
Narrating her ordeal she said: “I stopped the bus and entered, there were three men and I sat beside one of them and immediately we passed Army gate, the one I sat with slapped me unexpectedly and it downed on me that I have entered “One-Chance’ bus. They collected my purse that contained handset phone and little money and pushed me out of the bus as you can see injuries all over my body”.
Another victim who gave his name as Uche said that he was robbed with other passengers close to the building materials market along Onitsha expressway at about 5:30a.m when the driver of the bus suddenly stopped and one of the robbers asked everybody to cooperate with them.
“On that day I rushed out early to meet up with an appointment with somebody who was traveling to Lagos the same morning at Ogidi expressway. So, I boarded the bus with white paint along Awka road as they were shouting ‘express, building, toll gate’. As I entered I saw about three persons, including a lady”.
“As the bus moved to about two to three bus-stops another two boys entered whom I later found out to be their gang. In the bus they staggered themselves in different seat rows. As we were moving more innocent passengers like me were entering the bus. So, immediately after Tarzan bus-stop heading to the building material market one of them at the back seat shouted driver stop and the driver immediately parked at a lonely place.
“So, the next voice is please cooperate with us to avoid injury, just surrender all the valuables you have with you and don’t waste our time. So, one of them at the back collected phones, money and hand bags from women and men while another robber who seated at the front row did the same thing and they ordered everybody to go down from the vehicle and they zoomed off, this happened within two to three minutes, but no one was wounded.
“One of them showed us a shotgun and other weapons before we surrendered. Most of the passengers were women who were going to buy meat at Ogbunike abattoir. This is new system in Onitsha after the ban on ‘Okada’. We only hear about ‘One-Chance’ robbers in Lagos, but it’s here with us. I urged the security operatives to wake up and always patrol along the expressway early morning and late at night that is the time they operate,” Uche pleaded.
However, the state Commissioner of Police, Mr Mustpha Dandaura said that the command has declared war on the ‘One-Chance’ robbers and other criminals in the state.
He said that the police operatives attached to the command’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) recently arrested a-25-year-old Chimaobi Amauwa at Upper Iweka axis for allegedly belonging to ‘One-Chance’ robbery syndicate terrorizing Onitsha and its environs using a commercial bus to deceive their victims.
Dandaura said that exhibit recovered from the suspect included a locally made pistol and the operational vehicle L300 bus with Reg. No. DRK 85 XA, saying that the case was under investigation while efforts were on going to apprehend his accomplices after which they would be charged to court.