Some passengers travelling to Ilesa from Osogbo, the Osun State capital were kidnapped by five gunmen.
It was gathered that the 13 passengers in the commercial bus were however abandoned by their abductors when they heard the siren of a police patrol team.
It was gathered on Monday that the passengers boarded the commercial bus at a garage in Osogbo around 1:30pm on Sunday.
But unknown to them, five out of the 18 passengers in the bus were kidnappers.
It was learnt that while the bus was heading to Ilesa, one of the five kidnappers pleaded with the driver to stop the bus that he wanted to urinate.
He reportedly told the driver to stop and the driver obliged him. But at that point, the kidnappers were said to have pulled out guns and forced the passengers into a bush.
One of the rescued passengers, Ewaoluwa Oluwatofunmi, while narrating their ordeal, said they were first dispossessed of their valuables before they were marched further inside the bus by the gunmen.
She said, “I went to Ilesa Garage in Osogbo to board a bus going to Ilesa. When I got there, I met five men with some ladies inside the bus. When the bus was full, the driver started the journey but on getting to a spot on the road, one of the men told the driver to stop for him to urinate.
“The driver parked and when they got down, they asked others inside the bus if we were not going to come down and urinate. We told them we are matured to know if we want to urinate or not.
” Later, one of them told the driver that one of the car tires had gone flat. The driver got down and the other people in the bus also came down. As soon as we highlighted from the bus, the men brought out guns and asked us to move inside the bush. We trekked for some minute inside the bush until the men stopped us and asked us to bring out whatever valuables we had with us.
“After that, they forced us inside the bush. We heard the siren of the police and this scared the gunmen. They ran away and left us there.”
The Police Public Relations Officer for Osun State command, Yemisi Opalola, confirmed the incident.
He said, “We rescued the passengers from kidnappers with the help of hunters. The passengers were forced into the bush at the boundary of Osogbo/Ilesha but were found at Brewery area in Ilesa.”
