With abductions becoming daily incidents on the Owo-Benin highway, ADEWALE MOMOH reports that the 100-kilometre road is no longer just an eyesore but has become a traveller’s nightmare.

For years, the Owo-Benin Road has become a nightmare for travellers, with the journey through the over two-hour route mostly fraught with fear and uncertainty.

In Ondo State, the route is no doubt synonymous with danger due to the activities of criminals on the highway, which have continued to rise unabated.

The incessant cases of abductions have been sending shivers down the spines of motorists as well as instilling fear in the hearts of commuters and undermining the economic potential of even residents who trade along the route.

Following the development, the highway has witnessed a reduction in vehicular movements as some motorists prefer to connect Benin from Akure through the Ondo-Ore axis, which is a much longer route, to avoid the danger lurking on the Owo-Benin highway.

Findings by The Guardian revealed that most of the kidnappings that had occurred on the highway in Ondo often happened along the Owo-Benin Highway.

On the Edo State part, which begins from Sobe, there is a heavy security presence made up of the military, various units of the Nigerian Police, and the local vigilante group mounting various strategic positions in the south-south state.

However, the situation is different in Ondo as the presence of security personnel is not as heavy as that of Edo, a development that has made the road lonely at times.

One of the issues that had aided men of the underworld to often operate with ease was the state of the road, which had been in a deplorable state before it was recently patched at various points following a series of appeals by various security agencies, particularly the Ondo State Security Network Agency, otherwise known as Amotekun Corps.

Even with the temporary attention received by the road, which had been begging for dualisation, the attack on motorists and the abduction of travellers persists.

According to statistics, over 60 people had been kidnapped on the highway within the past two years, while in 2020, a first-class monarch in the state was shot dead following a failed abduction attempt.

In September 2022, 32 people were kidnapped on the route while returning from a ceremony in Benin to Akure. The victims, who were mostly photographers, were returning from the burial ceremony when they were waylaid at the Ifon axis of the highway.

The travellers were in a convoy of two coastal buses when one of the buses was attacked, after which they were taken into the forest.

Despite the efforts of security agencies to rescue the victims, some of the victims were not released by their abductors until a hefty ransom was paid after spending over a week in the den of the kidnappers.

One of the victims, who claimed that she had yet to get over the trauma of the incident over the past two years, disclosed that nothing in the world would make her pass through the highway in her lifetime.

The victim, Tomilola, said, “I’m yet to get over the trauma. I think my situation is even more traumatic because I happened to be one of those who stayed more with the kidnappers.

“Some of us stayed with them (the kidnappers) for over 10 days while negotiations for the ransom were ongoing. I never even thought that I would survive that horrible situation. Many people didn’t even know that a man was killed when they kidnapped us then.

“The moment they stopped our vehicles after firing gunshots into the air, they moved us into the bush. When we were being marched into the bush, one man suddenly fled from among us, and three of the kidnappers chased him. It was later when we were told to lie down, that the three kidnappers came and informed the rest of their members that they had already killed the man for daring to escape.

“The entire period we were with them, they didn’t allow us to take our bath. We were fed with garri while they ate noodles or sometimes bread.

“What baffled most of us is that these kidnappers make calls freely with some members of their gangs, who are not in the bush and for ransom negotiations, but security people could not even pick that up to know our location. We all paid ransom before we were released.”

Equally, on September 30, 2023, a total of 25 members of the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) from Akure, the state capital, were abducted while travelling to Ifon, Ose Local Council, for a burial ceremony.
The victims, who were members of the Oke-Igan branch of CAC in the state, were travelling in a church-branded vehicle when the attackers struck.

With some of the CAC members, who were mostly choristers, escaping, some of the victims were not lucky. N50 million ransom was collected by the abductors before they were freed after spending days in the bush.

Also, less than two months ago, in April 2024, a student of the Nigerian Navy Secondary School, Imeri, in Ose Local Council Area of the state, Jethro Onose, was abducted along with his father, Maliki Onose, while returning to school after a three-week holiday.

The gunmen waylaid the victims along the notorious highway at the Ifon axis while coming from Benin to Imeri.
The notoriety of the highway heightened in 2020 when a first-class monarch, the Olufon of Ifon, the late Oba Israel Adeusi, was killed by kidnappers.

The late monarch was killed at the Elegbeka axis of the Benin-Owo-Akure highway while returning to his domain in Ifon from Akure, where he had attended a meeting before he ran into the kidnappers.

Tales of woes along the road have been repeated in the last 10 to 15 years when they collapsed and it has become worse in the last three years when kidnappers found the axis as a profitable area to operate.

For instance, in 2022, gunmen abducted a staff of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company, BEDC, along the Owo-Benin Highway.

The victim, Seun Emmanuel who is a driver and the manager in the BEDC Ondo Region was attacked by the armed men while travelling from Ifon, the headquarters of the Ose Local Government Area in the state, to Akure on official assignment.
It was gathered that the duo ran into the gunmen who barricaded the road just before Elegbeka town along the Owo-Ifon Road and shot at their BEDC-branded Hilux van.

One of the vehicle tyres was hit by a bullet, the driver lost control, and the vehicle swerved into the nearby bush.
The manager was said to have become unconscious and the kidnappers left him, believing he had died but abducted the driver. It was also learnt that the boss was rescued from the scene after the hoodlums had left.

Following the unending activities of gunmen on the highway, relevant authorities were urged to ensure the presence of security operatives on the route, as a commercial bus driver who gave his name as Bode Ojo stated that the highway is no longer a busy route due to the activities of criminals.

He said, “More operatives of the police and army should be drafted to the road, particularly within the Ondo axis. There is a heavy presence of police on the Edo part of the route, but when you get to the Ondo part, there are not as many as in Edo.

“Due to the activities of criminals on the road, the road is no longer as busy as before. If there are more security personnel, these criminals will not be having a field day.”

Speaking on the situation, the Commander of Amotekun Corps in the State, Akogun Adetunji Adeleye, maintained that strategy had commenced towards ensuring that the highway is secured and safe for travellers.

Adeleye said: “We want to thank the leadership of the Ondo State government for taking proactive steps in repairing the road, and we also thank the federal government for collaborating in ensuring that what used to be the hideout for kidnappers and robbers between Ifon and Owo on the highway has been repaired, and relatively, the road is good now between Owo and the boundary of Ondo State.

“Now that the rains are here, we want to charge commuters not to overspend; they should avoid travelling late into the night and too early in the morning.

“The Ondo State Security Network Agency (Amotekun Corps) is embarking on regular patrols of the roads. Efforts are on top gear to enter the forests and drive these miscreants away from the forest.”

On the part of the state police command, security on the axis will be beefed up to curb criminal tendencies on the highway.