A councillor-elect, Mr. Paul Ojile, and his cousin have been beheaded by bandits in Orokam district of Ogbadibo Local Government Area of Benue State.
The victims were declared missing on Thursday but a day after a search party had been looking for them their heads were found on Friday morning.
The two men were among the security team that had gone to rescue another kidnapped victim in the area.
A source in the community, who pleaded anonymity, said: “Ojile who was waiting to be inaugurated into the council next month was discovered alongside his cousin in a bush without heads.”
Meanwhile, the chairman of Ogbadigbo Council Area, Prince Samuel Onuh, said the councilor-elect was a hunter who alongside his colleagues joined a security operation to curb the rising incidents of kidnapping in the area.
Onuh, who disclosed that two suspected kidnappers were arrested by a security outfit code-named ‘Operation Zenda,’ said a kidnap victim was rescued by a local vigilante group and hunters.
Lamenting that in recent times, there had been many cases of kidnappings in the community, he said: “There was a kidnap yesterday (Thursday); actually in the last three days, kidnappers have been troubling the area, there had been incessant kidnapping in the local government. They left one community in Owukpa and went to Orokam; on their way, they kidnapped one man.
“The councillor-elect who lives in the village is a hunter. He, his cousin, other hunters and the vigilante with Operation Zenda (a police outfit) had entered the forest to see if they could rescue the man that was kidnapped; it was when they were to return yesterday that they noticed two of them were missing but they were able to arrest two of the kidnappers. It was this morning that they were able to check again and found their lifeless bodies – the councillor elect and his cousin,”
Also, the Benue State Police Command’s spokesperson, Catherine Anene, confirmed the incident, saying the suspected kidnappers have been taken to Makurdi for investigation by the Operation Zenda.
However, she said she was yet to get details of the incident.