Kwara Construction Site Abduction: 2 Chinese Nationals Taken By Gunmen
By: Abudu Olalekan
The Bode Saadu/Kaiama road construction site don’t sleep quiet these days. Not really. Not since the attacks started piling up, one after the other, like unraked dry leaves in late harmattan. But December 1 was worse. Worse than most.
It was between 11pm and 4am—those hollow hours where even the most alert night guards are fighting to keep their eyes open. The two Chinese nationals on the BUA project? They’d wrapped up their evening equipment checks late, lingering a little near the yard to tinker with a bulldozer that’d sputtered out earlier that day. Then the shots came.
Sporadic first. Sharp cracks in the dark. Then steady. For two, three hours, the gunfire bounced off the red earth around the site. Masked men. They didn’t yell much. Just moved fast. Grabbed the two workers. Dragged them into the bush before anyone could get a proper count of how many attackers there was.
No other casualties, a security source told Reportersroom. But two men gone. To where, nobody knows. As of right now, the gunmen ain’t sent no demands. No calls. No word at all.
That site? It’s less than two kilometers from Bielesin/Fallah village. Olokiti is right nearby too. The villagers heard every shot. They huddled inside their homes, pressing their kids down low on the floor, and didn’t dare light a lamp. What good would that do?
This ain’t the only mess in Kwara these days. Not by a long shot.
Three days before that construction site attack, Wednesday morning, six beans farmers were taken from their fields in Lata, Patigi LGA. They were bent over their crops, pulling weeds or tending to young seedlings, when the men came. Swift. Coordinated. Herded the farmers into the bush like sheep. No updates on their whereabouts, even now.
The day before that? Tuesday. Bandits chased labourers off a small farm outside Patigi. Snatched a seven-month-old Haojue motorcycle from a local trader who’d saved up for it for two years. Gone, just like that.
And Eruku, Ekiti LGA? That place been bleeding too. Last Sunday, they took Mr. Aasaru, a farmer. That’s the second attack there in a month—barely a week after the federal government secured the release of 38 abducted CAC worshippers from the same area.
People are leaving. Not just moving to relatives in town for a few days. Packing up their pots and mattresses and kids and never coming back. The farms? Most of them are half-tended now. The ones that ain’t abandoned? Only the most desperate folks still go there, and only at midday, in big groups.
Kwara South and North ain’t safe no more. The bandits know it. The villagers know it. They operate like they own the bush. Come and go whenever they please.
Residents been calling for urgent help. For weeks. For months. But the help? It ain’t come fast enough.
