What Asuu Has Caused To Students: Two EBSU Female Students Stripped For Robbery In Calabar

TWO female undergraduate robbery suspects
and their male partner in crime were battered
and stripped naked in Calabar, Friday afternoon,
for attempting to rob a businesswoman of N1.5
million. The three suspects operating in a Golf car were
accosted by a taxi driver at about 4pm along the
Murtala Muhammed Highway by the Cross River
State new secretariat, while their driver and one
other suspect escaped. The gang reportedly ambushed the
businesswoman who had gone to withdraw the
N1.5 million at a bank along Calabar Road, near
the Watt market, where they approached her to
join their cab and the woman who appeared
eager to arrive home because of the money she had withdrawn immediately accepted and
boarded the taxi. Trouble started as she got to her destination and
discovered that the taxi driver became unwilling
to allow her alight from the vehicle. The robbery
suspects were said to have brought out guns and
asked her to cooperate with them if she did not
want to get hurt. The victim told Vanguard, “The suspects told me
to cooperate with them and quietly hand over
the N1.5 million or I would be killed.” She said she
suddenly became “angry in the spirit because this
money is contribution money and my members
who want to share the money on Sunday so they could get their Christmas things early would not
believe me. So I was ready to die and began to
raise alarm in the vehicle and calling for help”. She said her shouts attracted the attention of a
taxi driver who decided to give the Golf car a hot
chase until he overtook and blocked the vehicle
at Atekong Drive”. The driver of the five-man gang and another
suspect escaped by quickly alighting from the car
and running across the highway and then
jumping the perimeter fence of the new
secretariat. She added, “These two ladies were
apprehended by the people who came to see what was the trouble between the two taxis.
They began to beat them when they heard what
they had done to me.” The suspects who were thoroughly beaten and
stripped were later handed over to police who
came to the scene. The ladies confessed that they
were students of Ebonyi State University and
members of a syndicate which left Abakaliki in
Ebonyi State to Aba in Abia State. When contacted, the Police Public Relations officer
of the State Police Command, Mr. Hoggan Bassey
confirmed that the three suspects were in police
custody, saying they would soon be charged to
court. His words, “nemesis has caught up with them.
They are being investigated and so far they have
confessed that they used to hang around bank
premises with their car, shouting one chance, one
chance and waiting for people coming out of the
bank with money. “The Cross River State police commissioner Shola
Shodipo has promised armed robbers, kidnappers
and other criminals a raw deal this Christmas
season. Cross River State is the most peaceful
state in Nigeria and we are prepared to
compromise the crime free status of the state.”