…how VDM rescued shot driver as gunmen whiskaway 13 passengers
The Edo State Police Command has confirmed Saturday’s kidnapping incident which was recorded live by social activist, Martins Vincent Otse alias VeryDarkMan (VDM).
Commissioner of Police (CP) Monday Agbonikan, confirmed the incident in a telephone conversation, adding that the shot driver was responding to treatment.
He thanked Otse and his team for the courage they displayed during the incident, nothing that VDM’s insistence on taking the driver to the hospital helped to keep him alive.
According to the CP, the kidnappers took 13 victims with them and efforts had already commenced to ensure their safe rescue, and the arrest of the culprits.
“We have already taken steps to ensure those kidnapped are rescued and the suspects apprehended. We have deployed operatives and technology. Our teams are combing the areas as I speak to you,” said CP Agbonikan.
Otse, who was on a road trip in Edo State, had stumbled on kidnappers attacking a white bus, presumably an inter-state transport vehicle.
From the video he made around 4pm on Saturday, the kidnappers allegedly shot the driver and left him for dead while they marched the passengers into surrounding bushes.
According to Otse, some military personnel mounted a checkpoint not far from where the incident took place but did not advance to confront the kidnappers.
While other vehicles stopped moving towards that direction, VDM in whose entourage was a policeman and some other men, charged them to keep moving in order to chase the criminals.
He was able to get reinforcement from a patrol vehicle that was plying the same corridor and urged them to advance towards the kidnapping scene in order to stop the criminals.
A visibly angry Otse could be seen threatening to take up a gun and go into the forest to confront the criminals as he motivated the patrol vehicle to shoot at or run over any of the kidnappers who dared to confront them.
As soon as they got close to the wounded driver, Otse was heard telling his team that they must take him up and rush him to the hospital.
“We cannot leave him here. We will not go without him. That’s a human life we are talking about. Please loft him up for me and put him in the vehicle,” he signalled them, refusing all entreaties to the contrary.
His acts of bravery and compassion have seen received accolades from thousands of Nigerians across social media who are demanding that the federal government gives him a national award.
