A gang of armed robbers allegedly led by a female who posed as a nurse, has reportedly snatched an 18-seater Hiace bus belonging to a Benin-based private commercial transport company, Agbonifo Line.
The female robber who reportedly dressed in nurse uniform, was said to have led other members of her gang in the robbery operation to snatch the vehicle marked DGE 317 XB and chassis No: JTFRX12PV08042624, at gunpoint along the Ekpoma-Agbor road in the state.
Narrating his ordeal in the hands of the robbers from his hospital bed where he is being treated for injuries he sustained from the robbers’ attack, the driver of the bus, Anthony Nwaosa, said the suspect chartered the bus from the company’s park at Ekpoma, Esan West local government area of Edo state and informed the driver that she wanted to go and convey computers her husband imported from abroad.
“I was in Ekpoma at our park between the hours of 10 am and 11am last week Thursday when a lady approached me that she wanted to charter my bus to a village near Agbor. We agreed for a fee of N40,000. I met my manager at Ekpoma to confirm from my MD if I should embark on the trip or not and he agreed.
“So, the following morning (Friday) a bus was sent from Auchi which we used. Shortly after we departed from the park, it occurred to me that I didn’t carry the vehicle’s manifest papers so I asked her to permit me to return to the part to pick it which she obliged.
“During the course of the journey the girl was receiving several phone calls and I specifically asked her what exactly are we going to carry and she said computers which her husband that lives abroad imported. I became suspicious of her because of her conversation on phone as if the person was nearby.
“She later asked me to stop to pick somebody along the road and immediately the caller called her again that we have passed him. She then asked me to park. Only for me to sight about seven armed men from a nearby bush and they demanded the key of the bus.
“They started beating me with the butt of their guns and blocks from an uncompleted building while the girl watched until I couldn’t remember anything that happened again. I only woke up at the hospital here. That is all I can remember,” Nwaosa said.
The Managing Director of the transport Company, Festus Agbonifo, who corroborated the driver’s account, said he suspected foul play between his manager at Ekpoma and the female robber, because, according to him, no receipt indicating the identity of the girl was issued by the company’s manager before allowing the chartered bus to embark on the journey.
