How Abuja based Journalist Charles Onah Escapes Kidnapping in Okene Road
Abuja (Core Reporters) November 30, 2024, a Day an Abuja based journalist Charles Onah would never forget in a hurry. A day he saw what he has been reporting on a daily basis with his own eyes but God was on his side.
Mr. Onah, the Editor In Chief of The Assembly Reporters (TAR) narrated how he and his fellow travellers narrowly escaped been kidnapped along Okene bypass barely two days to the end of 2024.
In a chat with Core Reporters, Onah said he received a distress call from his village in Delta State where he was informed his younger brother was involved in a bike accident and sustained several injuries which prompted him to rushed down to the village.
He said, after two weeks with his brother at the hospital he was discharged and he decided to return to his base in Abuja through a commercial bus (GUO) .
According to him, “After spending some days with them in the hospital, and hie was discharged from the hospital, i decided to come back to Abuja since the stitches have been done successfully, I boarded a GUO motors back to Abuja.
“On our way coming back, along that Okene bypass heavily armed bandits “kidnappers” with full army uniform attacked us. As they were stoping us I noticed they were holding cutlasses and AK-47 with them, I immediately told the driver not to stop because i sense they could be kidnappers. As the driver notice same too he refused to stop and they opened fire on him, Oh My God! they sprayed our bus with bullet, but still the driver refused to stop, as their efforts to kill the driver was not yielding fruit they started firing on the bus’ tires.
“When it was obvious that the bus could not run again when the both tires became flat, all the passengers flee into the bush as the kidnappers chased the bus, the driver have to turn round and open the passengers door, no one was captured among us. Both women and children, the driver including me were rescued on Monday by God before the army now came to start firing guns to the air to completely chase them away from the scene,” he said.
Meanwhile, he noted that they just passed an army checkpoint not less than two minutes to another army checkpoint before the incident occurred.
