Three unidentified women have been kidnapped in Ekiti State by unknown gunmen.

The women were kidnapped yesterday with their husbands and an unspecified number of children along Igbole-Igbosin road while travelling in a Toyota Rav 4 Sports utility vehicle to Ibadan, Oyo State, for a wedding.

The kidnappers are reported to have later dropped the men and the children while the women were driven away in the car after collecting phones and other valuables from the victims.

The Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, worried about this development, has written the Inspector General of Police, Mr Solomon Arase, calling for his intervention to stem the spate of kidnappings that had hit the state in the last few weeks.

No fewer than five people, including a former Chief Medical Director of Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, his wife, a senior nurse at the Federal Teaching Hospital, Ado Ekiti, and a lecturer of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, had been kidnapped in the last two weeks in the state.

Also in Adamawa State, a group of unknown gunmen kidnapped the member representing Toungo Counstituency in the Adamawa House of Assembly, Alhaji Adamu Usman.

Usman was said to be kidnapped by the gunmen who stormed his residence at Kofare Ward of Yola around midnight on Friday.

Confirming the incident, the Police Public Relations Officer, Adamawa Police Command, Mr Othman Abubakar, said the lawmaker was taken away at gunpoint.

He however said that the police were investigating the incident.

Usman is one of the only two members of Adamawa Assembly who won their re-election to the house for a second term after defecting from PDP to APC in the just-concluded general elections.

The incident brings to three the number of kidnapping recorded in the state within six months.

Alhaji Sani Ribadu, a brother to Malam Nuhu Ribadu, and Mr Wilson Gundiri, a brother to Engr Markus Gundiri, were earlier kidnapped but later released.

Gindiri was the Adamawa SDP gubernatorial candidate in the just-concluded general elections.

•Pieced together from reports by Channels TV and NAN. Photo shows gunmen