Justice Rita Pemu of the Court of Appeal in Owerri Imo State, who was abducted on Sunday, in Rivers State, by unknown gunmen outsmarted her abductors by her ‘ordinary’ looks and sneaked out of the thick forest to safety hours after she was kidnapped.
The judge was travelling to her base in Owerri from Benin City, Edo State, when she ran into gunmen along Azia-Orsumoghu-Ihiala Road.
Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association, Owerri Branch, Chinedu Agu, said the judge escaped hours after she was abducted.
He said based on the way she was dressed, the gunmen felt she was one of the sides of the judge. He added that her driver was still missing.
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“On Sunday, February 20, 2022, the Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal, while traveling to Owerri from Benin City, was kidnapped along Azia-Orsumoghu-Ihiala Road by Kidnappers at about 11 am.”
“When the Chairman of the Bar, J.I. Ogamba and the Secretary, Chinedu Agu, paid His Lordship a visit at 5 pm 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.
“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 marching into a thick forest, one of the kidnappers, the Secretariat gathered, was boasting that he would have wasted their oga if he were there.
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“As his Lordship was marched into the bush-like a death-destined sheep to the slaughter, gunshots and concomitant cries of anguish pervaded the bush, which heightened her apprehension.
“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 of the time of this report, His Lordship’s official cars, her Driver, her personal property inside the car are yet to be found.
“As we condemn the spate of kidnapping and the unsettling height of insecurity in the state, we thank God for the life of Hon. Justice Rita Pemu.”