BARELY 24 hours after News Point Nigeria‘s report, the Nigerian Army says it is in consonance with other security agencies to track down an armed gang who attacked a military Hilux vehicle in Benin City, the Edo State capital on Wednesday.
Assistant Director of Army Public Relations, Yemi Sokoya, who disclosed this in a statement, also gave details of the incident.
News Point Nigeria had exclusively reported that, gunmen had killed an unspecified number of soldiers following an attack on an army patrol van in Benin City.
According to this newspaper’s report the incident was said to have occurred around 2pm on Thursday at First Junction along Akpakpava Road.
A military source told News Point Nigeria Friday afternoon that, the gunmen ambushed the military vehicle, heading towards the Ikpoba-Hill axis of the state capital.
But the Assistant Director of Army Public Relations stated that:
“The attention of the Nigerian Army (NA) has been drawn to a series of inaccurate narratives in the media space in respect to the attack on a military Hilux vehicle at Akpakpava road in Benin City Edo State by some armed gunmen on Wednesday 23 August 2023,” the statement read.
According to him, contrary to our report, a clerk from the 4 Brigade finance office and a driver went to town to fix the office printer and also stopped at a bank to process and collect a bank statement.
Furthermore, it said the armed gang in a red Toyota Camry car who must have trailed and noticed that the soldiers were not armed, opened fire on the vehicle, at a traffic light junction probably thinking the soldiers were carrying the money; but when they discovered the vehicle was empty, they zoomed off. Unfortunately, some of the bullets hit the driver in the chest and he lost his life in the hospital.
While several reports claimed that the robbers carted away huge sums of cash, the Army described them as “entirely false as no cash was involved”.
News Point Nigeria’s earlier report on the Edo attack:
https://newspointnigeria.com.ng.ng/soldiers-feared-dead-as-gunmen-attack-army-patrol-van-in-edo/
