Unknown gunmen suspected to be kidnappers have killed one Alhaji Tasi’u Abudulkareem, a 40-year-old businessperson, in an attempt to kidnap him from his shop in Tilden-Fulani of Toro local government area of Bauchi State.
The gunmen numbering five according to an eyewitness account struck Tilden-Fulani which is 102km from Bauchi at about 9:00pm on Tuesday where they attacked the pharmaceutical store of late Alhaji Tasi’u popularly known as Director shooting sporadically into the air.
A resident of the town who don’t want to be identified told WikkiTimes that the gunmen met late Tasi’u in his shop in the mid of his friends asking “who is Tasi’u among you?” and nobody responded to them because their faces looked strange just as one of them covered his face with a mask.
“It was one of the attackers with the mask that pointed at him. They boggled his shop and car at gunpoint before they attempted to guide him out of the town on foot without success because Tilde has developed in such a way that you cannot easily cross from one end of the town to another.
“His body was discovered behind his shop after the gunshots subsided bathed with blood and a bullet penetration on his chest,” he said.
Locals from the community tried to block the ever-busy Jos-Bauchi highway out of anger only to be deterred by security operatives mobilised to the town after the kidnappers have left.
Alhaji Tasi’u who was survived by a wife and four children also has over 40 youths under his apprenticeship before his untimely exit apart from those he has graduated and went on to establish themselves too in pharmaceutical business in and around Tilde.
“His entrepreneurial skills and open-handedness earned him the trust of the people of the community to the extent that he was loved by all and sundry. I don’t know anyone he has ever fought with or an adversary of his,” a family friend of late Tasi’u said of his interaction with people in the community.
He describes his burial as a special one in the history of Tilden-Fulani as people troop in their numbers leading to the unavoidable blockage of the Bauchi-Jos highway by sympathizers.
SP Ahmad Muhammad Wakil, Police Public Relations Officer Bauchi State Command while confirming the incident said that investigation is ongoing to bring the perpetrators of book.
“This is a case of attempted kidnapping with horrible homicide that happened yesterday night on the 14th of 07 2021 at about 22:15:00hrs. Our officers on patrol received a distress call from a Good Samaritan that five unknown gunmen stormed the medicine store of one Alhaji Tasi’u, 40 years old who is now deceased at Tilden-Fulani market.
“They whisked him away in an attempt to kidnap him where he struggled with the hoodlums and the hoodlums shot him on the chest and escaped to an unknown destination,” he said.
Wakil further explained that earlier on, the police received another distress call from a resident of Anguwan Dan Biram of the same Tilden-Fulani informing the police that unknown gunmen broke the gate of his house trying to force their way into the main compound.
He said the operatives of JTF Base Six rushed to the scene and engaged the attackers in a gun dwell making them run away into an unknown destination.
