Kidnap: Appeal Court Judge, Rita Pemu Escapes Gunmen, Driver Missing

A Judge of the Court of Appeal, Owerri Division, Justice Rita Pemu has luckily escaped from unknown gunmen suspected to be kidnappers.

It was gathered that the gunmen ambushed her while she was returning to Owerri from Benin City.

The incident which was said to have happened around 11 am on Sunday saw the kidnappers double-cross her convoy around Azia-Orsumoghu-Ihiala road.

Luckily for the Judge, she was not in her SUV as expected by the kidnappers but was in another bus dressed in a casual wear.

According to the Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association, Owerri Branch, Chinedu Agu who narrated the incident after visiting the Judge, this made the attackers assume she wasn’t in the travelling convoy as they couldn’t recognize her.

Amidst the ensuing confusion, the kidnappers fired gunshots and marched her (unknowingly) and others to the bush from where she luckily escaped and found her way back to Owerri.

The statement was titled, “The presiding justice of the Court of Appeal, Owerri Division, Hon. Justice Rita Pemu, escapes from the snares of kidnappers” however revealed that her driver wasn’t so lucky as his whereabouts remain unknown.

Agu said, “Yesterday, Sunday, February 20, 2022, the Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal, while traveling to Owerri from Benin City, was kidnapped along Azia-Orsumoghu-Ihiala road by kidnappers about 11 am.

“When the Chairman of the Bar, J.I. Ogamba and the Secretary, Chinedu Agu, paid His Lordship a visit at 5 pm today, the Secretariat gathered that the kidnappers double-crossed His Lordship’s vehicle, disembarking her and ordering her to prostrate on the road while pointing guns menacingly on her head.

“Justice Pemu, who by happenstance was rather in her Hiace Bus instead of her SUV and was dressed in a simple, spartan and free-flowing gown was mistaken by the kidnappers as one of ‘oga’s stewards’, as they kept demanding to know in which car their ‘oga’ (boss) was.

“While she was marched into a thick forest, one of the kidnappers, the Secretariat gathered, was boasting that he would have wasted their oga if he were there.

“As his Lordship was marched into the bush-like a death-destined sheep to the slaughter, gunshots and concomitant cries of anguish pervaded the bush, which heightened her apprehension.

“As the kidnappers backed out for his Lordship to continue the Golgotha walk into the depth of the bush, where perhaps she would face the doomed fate of others, she detoured and took safety elsewhere, and hurried back to Orlu town in disguise, from where she found her way into Owerri.

“As of the time of filing this report, His Lordship’s official cars, her driver, her personal property inside the car are yet to be found.

“As we condemn the spate of kidnapping and unsettling height of insecurity in the state, we thank God for the life of Hon. Justice Rita Pemu.”