Robbers kill 500-level Engineering student in Bayelsa

Emmanuel Addeh in Yenagoa

An gang suspected to be armed robbers on Wednesday shot and killed a final year engineering student of the Bayelsa State-owned Niger Delta University (NDU).

THISDAY learnt that the student of the university located on Wilberforce Island, Amasoma, Southern Ijaw, was killed near a bank where he was soliciting business from new school entrants who had gone to the bank to buy the institution’s entrance forms.

Obele Wilson, as the victim was later identified by friends, used the opportunity offered by the strike by lecturers over unpaid salaries to open a business centre where he had been processing admission seekers’ documents electronically for a fee.

He was reportedly attacked along the Sani Abacha Expressway, Yenagoa, where some branches of new generation banks are located.

The armed gang reportedly confronted Wilson and some bank customers at about 2pm and started dispossessing them of their cash, mobile handsets and other valuables.

An eyewitness, who preferred not to be named, said the deceased student was at the spot to seek patronage from persons who bought the NDU forms from banks since the competition in getting customers directly in the business centre had become fierce.

After the shooting, it was gathered that sympathisers tried to rush Wilson to an undisclosed hospital, but he died before getting there.

Further details later