Three persons, including a journalist, have been killed by dare-devil armed robbers who raided a bank in Ilara Mokin town in the Ifedore Local Government Area of Ondo State, South-West Nigeria.
Eyewitnesses say the robbers carted away an undisclosed amount of money from the bank in the Thursday attack which also left three other persons with injuries from stray bullets.
The deceased were a policeman, a commercial motorcyclist and the journalist, Bunmi Afuye, who was employed as a spokesperson for Elizade University two months before the incident.
Afuye and the commercial motorcyclist were reportedly passing by when they ran into the robbers while their operation was ongoing.
The duo were reportedly killed by stray bullets.
According to reports, the robbers blew off the bank’s the bullet-proof door using a dynamite before gaining access to the banking hall.
The policeman was killed by the explosion from the dynamite.
Witnesses said on gaining entry to the bank the robbers, who were about six, ordered the bank’s customer to lay on the floor while screaming, “where is the manager?”
A witness, who was inside the bank at the time of the incident, said: “They got a key to the vault, so they took the money there. They weren’t satisfied with what they saw in the vault so they broke into the Automated Teller Machine but there was not enough money there so they got angry and shouted: ‘Where is the money?”
The state Police Public Relations Officer, Tee-Leo Ikoro, confirmed the incident, adding that a team of policemen had been deployed at the scene, while an investigation was ongoing.
Meanwhile, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State, in a statement on Thursday, directed security agencies in the state to arrest “the perpetrators of this heinous crime and bring them to book in the shortest possible time.”
He said the death of Afuye had cost the journalism profession “a bright star.”
]The Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Ondo State Council, has also declared seven days of mourning to honour Afuye.
Afuye worked with the Ondo State Radiovision Corporation (OSRC) and Orange FM before he resigned to join Elizade University, Ilara-Mokin, as its new Public Relations Officer (PRO).
