The Recent Bank Robbery in Owerri

As the incessant bank robbery continued to loom amongst the country's crime, citizens and foreign investors in the capital city of Owerri Imo State had always experienced shock due to insecurity of lives and properties caused by these men of the underworld.

The most recent of these incidents occurred by 11am in the morning on Tuesday 15^th April 2008 as armed robbers in disguise attacked a fully loaded bullion van along the Wetheral Road. These armed robbers were heavily armed with sophisticated weapons like the bazooka, machine guns and an armoured car vehicle and were about 50 in number of which most are men.

The robbers succeeded by targeting the bullion van and blocking the major road links to give way for their operations which lasted for about 45 minuets. The city was heavily animated by their sporadically shutting of guns and the amazing alarm rose by people around the scene most of them were passengers, drivers, pedestrians, traders and security men. I was lucky enough to have stayed and watched from a close by cyber cafe upstairs though not without panic.

These ugly scene attracted the force men from the near by barracks but noting was done to eliminate these evil men because they do not have such physical and material power to arrest the culprits. It was clearly witnessed by all in the cyber café adjacent to the road that the police men too disappeared for the fear of being killed only to resurface when the robbers must have left the scene.

The idea of these culprits were really scientific as they captured the driver, car escorts and all around the bullion van, while some other helped in transferring the money and other valuables into their various vehicles including a dark yellow Hummer jeep and a Mercedes jeep.

This really happened like the movie watched on the TV. People took to their heels, some where seriously wounded while three people among whom were a local football player and a popular trader were reported shot dead in the cause of escaping from the scene of the crime.

I have so much had in the media about these hoodlums' afire but I have seen and now a report of one of these ugly scene. The heavy guns by the armed robbers continue rolling until the end of the operation by around 11.55am. They robbers made their way out the city through an obscure and abandoned road in the city heading to Umuahia Town.

The government of the State had announced on the media to reward any body that can help trace the culprit with the sum of N1, 000,000.00 (1 Million Naira) but then noting has so far been heard about this. The banks affected had for long renovated some damaged parts of their edifices and buildings.

This has so much taught me to always be at alert and at anytime. But again it means that any thing can come up even when you least expected it. It's sometime similar to a citation from the Gospel of Luke about the second coming of Christ Jesus like that of the recent bank robbery I experienced in Owerri (i.e. by unawares).