By our reporter 22.4.2026
The Police in Edo State have urged travellers not to be scared of using the Lagos-Benin expressway following the hijack of a GUO transport Company bus, killing of the driver and kidnap of passengers by gunmen last week.
Edo State Police Command spokesperson Eno Ikoedem who was speaking in a Channels TV interview Wednesday said the incident was an “isolated incident.”
“Once in a while, we have isolated incidents like the unfortunate incident that occurred on April 18, but I can assure you that the command has a firm grasp of security along that expressway,” Ikoedem said
The GUO bus was carrying five people travelling from Lagos to the eastern part of the country when the vehicle was ambushed by the gunmen near Igbobazuwa Edo State.
The driver was gunned down instantly, while a lady with a gunshot wound was rescued. Three passengers were taken away by gunmen. There has been no contact with the families of the victims for a ransom payment.
“As I sit here now, we have the division, not just that division; we have all neighbouring divisions under the Commissioner of Police’s direction, including the area commanders that share boundaries with all the forests in that area on a rescue mission at the moment.
“We are also collaborating with our sister agencies; we have the Nigerian military, vigilantes, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), and the local hunters also in this rescue mission, and in less than no time, we will get the bad guys, and we will also see to the safe rescue of the victims,” she assured.
Following the incident there fears the relatively safe Lagos-Benin road may soon become another operating zone for gunmen.
“We have done a lot of deployments. Like I said, we do periodic assessments of this strategy on how it’s working effectively and the loopholes that we are having, so we can do a redeployment; that’s what we do periodically,” Ikoedem assured.
“We have a lot of meeting points on that express. Anybody travelling along that express can attest to the fact that there is a heavy presence [of security operatives] on the express. That’s one of the proactive measures that we have done amongst many others.”