From Mohammed Muktar Umar, Bauchi

A woman, Mrs Rukayyat Odedoyin, was in the early hours of Friday was kidnapped from her residence at Birshin Fulani community on the outskirts of Bauchi metropolis, located on the Bauchi-Dass road by some unknown gunmen.

This is even as some residents of the community on Friday morning protested the deteriorating security situation in the community by blocking the Bauchi-Dass road.

The kidnappers, who were said to be about 10 in number, were said to have stormed their victim’s house at about 12am and broke the main door to access the house before they whisked away the woman and locked up her three children in the house.

DAILY ASSET learnt that Odedoyin’s husband was only recently transferred to Kaduna from his place of work.

A neighbour of the victim, who spoke with journalists on the condition of anonymity, said when the attackers arrived the community, the fired sporadically gunshots from suffer not directions to scare residents before they (attackers) jumped the fence into their victim’s house.

“At about 12 midnight, we started hearing sporadic gunshots from different directions around our house. We woke up and thought of having cover.

“We then heard people jumping the fence trying to gain entrance into the house of our neighbour. They were there from 12 midnight to 1.30am.

“By the time we came out, they had left with the woman leaving behind her three children,” the neighbour informed.

Another neighbour, who identified himself as Usman Baba, explained that the kidnappers came on motorbikes, adding that, “thereafter fired gunshots from different directions then later towards the house of the woman who was kidnapped.”

A colleague of the victim’s husband, Ade Aremu, said he was called by his colleague who told him that his family was in danger and asked him to check upon them.

“I was called by my colleague who is in Kaduna that his family was in danger, that I should go and see what the situation was. When I got there, I discovered that she had been kidnapped leaving behind the three kids,” Aremu said.

Meanwhile, the state Commissioner of Police, Sylvester Abiodun Alabi, told newsmen at a briefing that information on the incident was still very sketchy and as such he could not comment on the kidnapping for now.

DAILY ASSETS reports that Burshin Fulani community was recently in the news when some gunmen killed a senior staff member of The Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi, Engineer Mohammed Garba Abubakar, injured one person who later died while receiving treatment at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital (ATBU), Bauchi and kidnapped another person.

In a related development, some residents of Birshin Fulani community came out to protest the security situation in the community by blocking the Bauchi-Dass road.

The protesting residents, mostly women and youths carried branches of leaves chanted “Bamu yarda ba”, meaning, “we don’t agree”, calling on government at all levels to intervene by bring security personnel to the community.

Protesters prevented motorists from going to or coming from Dass from moving for about one hour that the protest lasted.

A resident, Abdullahi, who spoke with newsmen, said that protest was as a result of the deteriorating security situation in the community, which he said used to be peaceful.