A disturbing wave of criminals posing as passengers are luring drivers with lucrative trip offers, only to rob, poison or murder them and steal their vehicles
“Sometimes, the greatest danger comes disguised as an ordinary journey.”
This was what happened on October 15, when a couple approached the driver of a commercial shuttle in Nkanu, Enugu State.
The couple – Emmanuel Nnorom and Precious – appeared like any other couple planning a trip. They told the driver that they wanted to charter his vehicle for a trip to Umuobom, a community in Ideato South Local Government Area of Imo State.
However, this was a ruse concealing a shocking degree of wickedness, which the yet-to-be-identified driver was unaware of until it was too late.
The driving distance between Nkanu and Umuobom is approximately 115 kilometres. The journey would have taken over two hours and could have earned the driver between N180,000 and N250,000.
Sadly, the trip, which initially appeared to be a legitimate charter business, turned deadly upon arrival at the couple’s residence in the community.
In a video shared by Per Second News on Facebook, the seated couple could be heard being interrogated in Igbo, as they carried the driver’s corpse.
Precious, who hailed from Ohafia, Abia State, allegedly colluded with her husband, Emmanuel, who hailed from Umuobom, to lure the unsuspecting driver into their house under the pretext of asking him to help load some luggage into the bus.
When the driver entered the house, the couple allegedly attacked and killed him.
gathered that after allegedly killing the driver, the couple attempted to take possession of his bus and flee.
According to an eyewitness, neighbours who heard a strange commotion as the driver struggled for his life in the compound raised the alarm, attracting members of the local vigilante group and other residents.
The suspects were said to have been apprehended while attempting to escape with the deceased’s vehicle, after which security operatives were alerted.
Police operatives attached to the Ideato division reportedly arrested the suspects and recovered the stolen commercial bus, while investigations continued to establish the circumstances surrounding the alleged killing.
A resident of the area, Chinonso Ojukwu, claimed that when Emmanuel was first accosted by members of the local vigilante group, he initially attempted to justify the crime by falsely alleging that the deceased had an affair with his wife.
He alleged that subsequent police and community investigations revealed that the actual motive was the premeditated theft of the driver’s commercial bus.
“We still do not yet know the identity of the deceased or the community he came from.
“All we know is that the young man reportedly worked as a shuttle bus driver in Enugu State. The picture of the vehicle and its plate number is being shared alongside this information in the hope that someone will recognise the vehicle or know the deceased.
“Our major concern is to identify this young man and locate his family. Somewhere, a family may be searching for their son, brother, husband, or loved one without knowing what has happened to him,” Ojukwu said.
The resident further disclosed that the bus, with registration number UWN-952ZX, had been recovered and was parked at Akokwa Police Station.
Although the state police command had yet to issue an official statement on the matter, a senior police officer in Ideato confirmed the arrest and said an investigation had commenced.
The suspects were said to remain in custody as homicide investigators prepared to transfer the case to the State Criminal Investigation Department in Owerri for further investigation and possible prosecution.
Messages sent to the state Police Public Relations Officer, Henry Okoye, on Wednesday, seeking confirmation of the victim’s identity and other details of the case, had not been answered as of the time of filing this report.
Poisoned and left to die
A similar incident had occurred involving a driver who preferred to be known as Vincent Onyebuchi in 2016.
The father of four, who resided in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, described it as a nightmare that still haunts him even though it happened a decade ago.
“A man chartered my vehicle, a Sienna, from Port Harcourt to where he said he was residing in Owerri. He appeared cheerful, and we talked on the way to the state capital. When we arrived, he gave me some stout to drink, and we both sat and drank; that was the last thing I remembered.
“I was told that a bar owner found my body in Umuaka Village (about 30 minutes away from Owerri). They stole my car, which I had just bought at the time. If not for the good Samaritan who rushed me to the hospital, I would have died. They poisoned me and left me to die, but God sent that person to save me. Since then, I have difficulty trusting people,” Onyebuchi said.
He further disclosed that although the case was reported at a police station, he could not recover his stolen car.
A hideous trend
An X user, Shawn Tigana (@Nicoluchenzy), described the premeditated killing of drivers as “the new trend for criminals now.”
“I lost my friend through this same pattern a few years ago. His dead body was found in the bush. He had been strangled. I don’t think that his bus was recovered. We live in a wicked world,” he said.
Although efforts made to reach him for details of where and precisely when this happened were unsuccessful, several media reports have pointed to this insidious pattern.
In several cities and towns, a highly dangerous trend has emerged in which criminal syndicates pose as regular passengers to hire ride-hailing or commercial vehicles, only to ambush, rob, and brutally murder the drivers.
Crackdowns by the Nigeria Police Force have uncovered specialised syndicates operating primarily in urban centres like Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt.
Some of these criminals use popular ride-hailing apps to request a ride, or lure commercial drivers privately under the pretence of hiring them for a long-distance event such as weddings, corporate trips or festive events in a far distance.
Once inside the vehicle, they direct the driver to a predetermined, lonely area or a secluded hideout.
In some instances, these criminals violently overpower the driver, frequently using knives, machetes or guns, resulting in fatal stabbings or strangulation.
Others use a more devious tactic of luring the unsuspecting driver inside a building, or offering them food laced with poisonous substances or sleeping pills.
From the confessions of these suspects, the primary motive appears to be vehicle theft – a specific targeting of high-demand models like the Toyota Camry to sell to waiting black-market receivers.
In extreme cases, some syndicates have also been linked to organ harvesting and ‘ritual killing.’
Gangs in Lagos
In January 2025, the Lagos State Command busted several gangs of armed robbers and recovered from them a large cache of arms.
These were not the kind of thieves who robbed people of home gadgets or smartphones.
Instead, their modus operandi was to target and kill private commercial vehicle operators, including e-hailing cab drivers in the state.
A former state Commissioner of Police, Olanrewaju Ishola, said 43 suspects were arrested for various criminal activities, including armed robbery, cultism, murder, child abuse, kidnapping, and illegal possession of firearms the previous year.
Ishola recounted how gangs of suspects contacted e-hailing drivers and other private commercial vehicle operators to rob them of their vehicles and kill them.
He said, “On January 9, 2025, at about 12 am, a case of conspiracy, armed robbery, and murder was reported. One Emeka Akwara, 19, David Segun, 21, Samuel Ariori, 21, and Lukman Ariori, 19, ordered the services of Uber at Chevron in the Lekki area en route to Obalende.
“On getting to Obalende, in a lonely area, they robbed and killed the Uber driver by stabbing him multiple times in the neck. Unfortunately, they were unable to snatch the vehicle. With the intervention of good Nigerians in the area, two suspects were immediately arrested and handed over to police operatives attached to Lion Building. Investigation further led to the arrest of the other two fleeing suspects of the dangerous gang in the Chevron area of Lagos.”
During the investigation, detectives found out that another Uber driver was killed in similar circumstances.
Two suspects, Edmond Abdoulaye and Saturday Okey, were tracked and arrested in connection with the crime.
The Toyota Camry they stole from the murdered driver was recovered and handed over to the family.
The case was charged to court, but unfortunately, the driver was killed. Ishola further stated that a third incident of such murder was reported within a month.
“We don’t know how many more have happened. Such cases of brutality are increasing,” the CP added.
In June 2024, the Police Command in Rivers State arrested some members of a criminal gang suspected to be murdering car-hire drivers and stealing their vehicles.
A former state PPRO, Grace Iringe-Koko, said the group were linked to multiple cases of drivers who went missing.
One of the gang members, a graduate of Political Science from a tertiary institution in Port Harcourt, Anthony Chima, who was arrested, led down the trail to the exposure of the gang’s sinister activities.
It all started with the disappearance of an e-hailing cab driver, Oghenevwarhe Akpobome, on January 10.
On that fateful day, Akpobome received a request from Chima and was asked to be picked up at the residence of another gang member later identified as Reason.
Disguised as a passenger, Chima lured the unsuspecting driver to a remote area in Aminigboko community, where he met Reason and another gang member, General Effizy, along with four-armed gang members.
“The driver was forcefully removed from the vehicle and taken to Effizy’s shrine, where he was tied up, gagged and gruesomely murdered,” the police said.
Under interrogation, 35-year-old Chima confessed to being recruited into a gang that specialised in luring taxi drivers into ambushes and stealing their vehicles.
According to his testimony, the gang not only killed the drivers in the most gruesome way, but they also harvested their body parts for ritualistic purposes.
“The suspect said that he was introduced into the gang by his friend, Amfoh Abu, the group’s arms dealer, and another individual simply identified as ‘Reason.’
“Investigation further revealed that ‘General Effizy,’ the gang’s leader, is a prominent figure in the Greenland cult and a seasoned kidnapper in the state,” Grace Iringe-Koko added.
Chima confessed that he randomly obtained the e-hailing cab drivers’ phone numbers and pretended to be a passenger in need of a ride.
He also led the police to the shrine and Effizy’s residence, “where personnel recovered the victim’s skull and a locally fabricated Beretta pistol.”
Source : Punch Newspaper