posted
A Youth Corps member serving in Abuja has revealed how robbers gave him 32 strokes of horse-whip for talking too much. According to Ike Otiono, an indigene of a community in Aniocha North local government area of Delta State, he was going back to his place of primary assignment after the Christmas holidays when he unluckily boarded a bus filled with armed robbers. The 24-year-old Otiono, said that after picking them up at Umunede, one of the armed robbers led them in praise-worship after which another one took over and led in prayers which lasted for about 30 minutes. According to him, after the prayer session, one of the robbers started up a political discussion which drew contributions from unsuspecting victims. Being a graduate of political science, Otiono said he seemed to have an upper hand and defeated them in the ensuing arguments. “We discussed the Anambra crises. We talked on the adoption of Ngige. I defended Ngige while the robbers supported Uba and one of them even quoted a portion in Gulliver’s Travels that he who brings ill to his benefactor was not fit to live, blaming Ngige for biting the finger that fed him.” The robbers, according to him, were either graduates of tertiary institutions or undergraduates judging from their good command of English. When they got to a village near Okene, the driver allegedly pretended that his vehicle had a mechanical fault and begged the passengers to bear with him. “We were not bothered as we had had a smooth ride all along and we all enjoyed the arguments in the bus. After pretending that the repair of the coaster was beyond him, the driver suggested that we should drive to a nearby village where we could get a motor mechanic. One of the passengers, a lady insisted that she be dropped so she could enter another vehicle and after an attempt to persuade her to stay failed, the driver granted her wish. “We followed them through one road like sheep being taken to the slaughter slab. When we drove about 15 kilometers without seeing a soul or building, one man raised an alarm that if the vehicle could move with such a reasonable speed on a bad road, it should be able to get to Abuja and almost immediately the robbers struck. According to him, the leader of the gang who should be about 24 years old, brought out a pistol and pointed it at the passengers warning that everybody should be calm. “As if we were staring at death, the other guy sitting beside me and the driver, stood up and brought out a sharp dagger. They ordered us to start alighting from the bus while they searched us one after the other.” According to Otiono, when it got to his turn,the leader of the gang ordered that he must not be searched and that he should remain inside the bus. This, he said, made other passengers to suspect that he was one of them. He said: “The son of the devil said, ‘yea man, loquacious guy, you talk pele, pele, pele, I meant to advise you that next time, don’t try to talk too much. This is your christmas and new year gift. He called to his colleague, Friday and said, ‘dash him 42 strokes”. Otiono said, Friday brought out a horse whip wound round his waist and ordered him to lie face down while he trashed him. “As he was trashing me, the leader of the gang was counting the number of the strokes but when he counted 32, he ordered him to stop,” he said. After flogging him, they ordered everybody to run inside the bush or be shot. “Other people started running, but I could not stand up and two of them carried me off the road and zoomed off with reverse gear,” Otiono said, adding that after about 20 minutes, people started emerging from the bush and they all trekked to the road where they started begging good Samaritans to take them to Abuja. According to him, two luxury bus drivers assisted them after they explained their plight, but none of the passengers arrived Abuja with their loads as the robbers took everything.
___________________ This war of attrition on the Igbo must end now! Posts: 441 | From: california, US | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged
posted
Those corpers talk too much. Too bad he was flogged by robbers. He should have been flogged one of the passengers.
Posts: 19 | From: Readng, PA | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
