Suspected Fulani gunmen on March 17, 2021 invaded a farm in Fiditi town, Oyo State, shot and killed a farm customer and abducted a security guard.
The security guard, however, later escaped in the early hours of Thursday from his captors in the forest.
The bandits, said to be seven in number, reportedly arrived at the farm about 5:45pm, just when workers were closing for the day.
At least five of them wielded AK-47 rifles, it was gathered.
The leader of the bandits was said to have targeted the farm manager, Adelakun Sunday, as he was about leaving his office, wielding his rifle menacingly.
The manager quickly retreated into his office, locked the door, ran into his toilet and from there climbed up the ceiling to hide.
This reportedly irked the gang member who then started pumping bullets into the office door, but still could not enter.
After all was quiet few minutes later, the manager descended from the ceiling to find out that the kidnappers had ransacked his Mercedes Benz car parked within the farm premises.
The security guard, one Felix from Plateau State, had been abducted.
The owner of the farm was not around, it was learnt.
Other workers, who had fled into the bush for safety, also started returning to the farmland when they felt it was safe to do so.
The manager and others later discovered the body of a customer, during a search around the farm.
The deceased, an Igede man from Benue State, was said to have come to the farm on his Bajaj motorcycle.
He had brought two dead chickens in a sack, before he met his death.
The police later went to the farm to recover the body of the deceased man, and took it to the mortuary at a hospital for autopsy.
They were said to have found three expended shells of AK-47 rifle bullets and one empty cartridge shell at the scene.
Police authorities say they promptly started combing the bush in search of the kidnappers in order to rescue the security guard, who was said to have escaped from his abductors in the middle of the night, without payment of any ransom.
Apparently due to the pressure put on the kidnappers by the police operatives searching for them, they moved to a hideout, where they bound their victim’s hands with a chain.
However, having noticed that his abductors had slept off, Felix unchained himself and fled.
He was said to have showed up on Thursday morning.
The spokesman of the Oyo State Police Command, CSP Olugbenga Fadeyi, confirmed the development, saying the victim was able to escape due to the pressure put on the abductors by the police.
Fadeyi said the body of the deceased has been deposited in mortuary at the State Hospital, Oyo, for autopsy, while investigation has commenced into the incident.
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