Details have emerged of how the Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal, Owerri Division, Hon. Justice Rita Pemu, escaped from suspected kidnappers last Sunday.
A release by the Secretary, Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Owerri branch, Chinedu Agu, disclosed that on Sunday the 20th day of February, 2022, the Presiding Justice, while traveling to Owerri from Benin City, was kidnapped along Azia-Orsumoghu-Ihiala Road by Kidnappers at about 11am.
The statement read; “When the Chairman of the Bar, J.I. Ogamba and the Secretary, Chinedu Agu, paid His Lordship a visit at 5pm today, the Secretariat gathered that the kidnappers double-crossed His Lordship’s vehicle at a speed break, disembarking her and ordering her to lie prostrate on the road, while pointing guns menacingly on her head.
“Hon. Justice Pemu, who by happenstance was rather in her Hiace Bus instead of her SUV and was dressed in a simple, Spartan and free-flowing gown was mistaken by the kidnappers as one of “oga’s stewards,” as they kept demanding to know in which car their “oga” was. While she was matched into a thick forest, one of the Kidnappers, the Secretariat gathered, was boasting that he would have wasted their oga if he were there.
“As his Lordship was matched into the bush like a death-destined sheep to the slaughter, gun shots and concomitant cries of anguish pervaded the bush, which heightened her apprehension.
READ ALSO:
Kidnappers dumped 30 bodies in Rivers abandoned building
“As the Kidnappers backed out for his Lordship to continue the Golgotha walk into the depth of the bush, where perhaps she would face the doomed fate of others, she detoured and took safety elsewhere, and was hurried back to Orlu town in disguise from where she found her way into Owerri”.
As at the time of the report, His Lordship’s official cars, her Driver, her personal property inside the car are yet to be found.
While condemning the spate of kidnapping and unsettling height of insecurity in the State, the NBA thanked God for the life of Hon. Justice Rita Pemu.
Kidnappers and unknown gunmen have lately turned the Azia-Orsumoghu-Ihiala Road between Anambra and Imo States, a safe haven for their nefarious activities. While Justice Pemu was lucky to have escaped their onslaught, a Port-Harcourt based businessman, Chief Gab Ofoma, was not that lucky as he was felled by the blood thirsty hounds the same day.
