?
The fear of most residents of Abuja who are not car owners is that of boarding vehicles to their various destinations within the city and not knowing who the driver or the other passengers of the vehicles are.
The fear has grown recently with the rampage of ‘inside vehicle criminals,’ popularly known as ‘one chance’ taking over the roads of Abuja to rob passengers of their belongings on lonely roads and even on busy express roads at nights.
This despicable occurrence has almost become a routine business for the one chance robbers that it is very difficult to find one or two Abuja residents without one horrible tale to tell about these people who have no regard for the lives of their victims.
Ironically, most of the people who fall victim of the one chance syndicate are usually not better off tthan the criminals themselves.
Information from different sources reveal that this act has degenerated to a level that some of them pretend to use their vehicles for hire, with their accomplice hiding inside the boot of the car, and when they get to a lonely road, the driver will stop and his accomplice will come out to perpetrate their evil acts.
For Raphael Osagie, a civil servant who did not originally board a one chance vehicle, but that the one chance criminals boarded the same vehicle with him, the experience was not a pleasant one, because what he got was not what he will wish to happen again, even to his enemy, if he had one, because it has landed him in the hospital with a broken knee, all because he boarded a vehicle which was hijacked by ‘one chance’ robbers in Abuja.??
Osagie narrates his ordeal, “It all started one Friday evening, after I left the office at the Federal Secretariat, Abuja, where I work.? I waited at the bus stop to get a cab to take me to Banex junction or possibly to Kubwa Village, but I refused to board the first vehicle I saw because the passengers were all men. So, they drove off, then another vehicle came and I boarded that one immediately.? As we drove off, I was monitoring the first vehicle that initially stopped to carry me, hoping that it will stop to pick passengers at Banex Junction, but it did not, it just drove off.?
“I alighted at Banex junction and boarded another car to Kubwa Village and I was the first person to board the vehicle so I sat at the passenger’s seat with the driver.? On the way, a lady also going to Kubwa Village joined us in the car.? Then somewhere between Banex and NICON Junction, three guys beckoned at the driver that they were stranded because their vehicle which they stood by had broke down. They said they were also going to Kubwa Village and they entered the car.
According to Osagie, the driver initially refused to carry them, but they pleaded that one of them was going to stop at the pedestrians bridge before Galadima junction. “Immediately they boarded the vehicle with us, my instinct told me that there was problem, that those guys were not real, but I could not do anything but just pray within myself and used my hand to protect my neck in case of any attack with rope or belt from behind.
“Till we got to News Engineering bus stop, everybody was quiet until the driver reminded one of the guys that said he was alighting at the pedestrians’ bridge before Galadima bus stop along Kubwa Express Road. The driver stopped for him to alight from the car.? When he alighted, he walked to the driver’s side as if he wanted to pay the driver, asking the driver how much the fare was.
“While he was doing that, one of the two guys that were at the back seat stretched his hand to collect the car key from the ignition. When I saw their action, I quickly came out of the vehicle to run to the other side but they ran after me, caught me and started hitting me with blows and kicks and in the process, one of them pushed me into the deep ditch by the Express Road.”
He said after he fell into the ditch with his laptop computer and broke his knee in the process, one of the guys jumped into the ditch and started hitting his broken knee continuously with a stick. He further stated that everything he had on him including his laptop computer was collected from him, adding that they stabbed the driver with a screwdriver and collected the other lady’s phones and money; that it was when a vehicle was approaching them that they ran into the bush.
“I managed to come out from the ditch with my broken leg, before the driver and the other car that stopped rushed me to the hospital.? All these happened between 9pm and 10pm and that side of Kubwa Express Road was lonely.? If anybody must move at night, they should just be careful, or if possible avoid it,” he added.
Another victim of the one chance operators, Janet Chukwuma, also a civil servant, could not control the tears as they flowed freely from her eyes when she tried to recollect the dreaded experience that almost claimed her life, when she boarded a vehicle that was used for ‘one chance,’ early July, 2012.
According to her, she boarded the vehicle from Minister’s Hill Junction, Maitama to Dutse Alhaji and unknown to her, she was in the midst of heartless criminals, who could do anything to get what they want not minding the gender of the passenger that is inside the car.
Chukwuma said, “This one chance people are heartless, they can do anything to make you give them what they want. The day I encountered these people, it was like hell. They threatened to throw me out of the moving vehicle which was on high speed, along Kubwa Express way, between Galadima Junction and Dutse Junction.? But when I pleaded with them after they had collected my things, they slowed down the vehicle and pushed me out of the slowly moving vehicle.
“I sustained some injuries on my elbow and legs, they collected my Jewellery, my laptop and the salary I collected that afternoon from the bank to execute a project. ?That day, it was as if the end had come for me.? There are a lot of ways they operate, if you refuse to enter their vehicle, they will not force you, rather, they will look for somewhere to park their car and pretend as if the car is bad, when you drive pass them they will board your vehicle and operate inside the vehicle,” she said.
She advised drivers to avoid picking people anyhow on the road, that if they must pick passengers, they should do that at the bus stops, where there is enough light to see the faces of the passengers.? She also said that in order to reduce the fears many Abuja residents are having, the security agencies can arrest them, by pretending to be passengers or drivers at night and drive about once in a while, saying that when such is done, it will reduce the crimes befalling passengers on the road.?