Yet-to-be identified gunmen have reportedly abducted some passengers and the driver of a Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV).

Information about the kidnap is still sketchy at the time of the report. Our correspondent, however, gathered that the passengers were abducted along the Isuikwuato axis of the Umuahia-Uzuakoli-Isuikwuato-Ohafia Expressway.

The Commissioner of Police, Abia State Command, Danladi Isa, and the command?s Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Maureen Chinaka, were yet to respond to messages sent to them.

However, a source from the area said that they were told that the gunmen had mounted a block which forced the driver of the vehicle who thought that they were security personnel to slow down.

It was learnt that the hoodlums took advantage of the situation to order the passengers and the driver out of the car and marched them into the nearby bush.

?We got the information from the people that some people were being marched into the bush by some people welding guns and other dangerous weapons.

?By the time our people contacted the Army at 143 Battalion and mobilise them to the scene, the people had gone.

?This is not the first time this kind of incident is happening. We want government to direct security agencies to come to the aid of road users.?

It was gathered that rescue operation has since commenced as security agencies have launched manhunt on the said kidnappers with the aim to mount pressure on them and eventual release of the captors.

Recall that the Commissioner of Lands in the state, Chaka Chukwumereije, was attacked few days ago on the Enugu-Umuahia-Aba-Port Harcourt Expressway while he was heading to Umuahia, the state capital from the Enugu-Umuahia axis of the ever-busy highway by gunmen.

Some of the residents of the state, Mr. Solomon Ofuiche and Mrs. Loveth Chionye, who said they were indigenes of Abia North said that their people now live in fear following the increasing security threat on the lives of citizens who use that stretch of road on daily basis. (The Nation, but headline rejigged)

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