Ibrahim Ibuoye, a fifty-four-year-old businessman, has narrated how he escaped the assassin’s bullet a few minutes after he was released from prisons.
Fearing for his life, Ibuoye, the Chief Executive Officer of GB Ibuoye Nigeria Limited, a mining company, has called on the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, to investigate the alleged shooting and fish out those behind the attempt on his life.
Speaking with newsmen in Lagos yesterday, he said he was detained at Ikoyi Prison on some frame-up charges, but was later granted bail. “Moments after I regained freedom, some gunmen believed to be sent by my business partner shot at me in front of Ikoyi prisons, but they missed their targets,” he said.
The miner, who was narrating his ordeal from his hospital bed at Egbeda, a suburb of Lagos metropolis, amid intense pains sustained while escaping the assassin’s bullet, traced his ordeal to his ex-business partner, whom he claimed brought up a kidnap/murder attempt allegation against him following a petition he lodged with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on a N92 million royalty debt, which his ex-business partner owes the Federal Government.
“I know the source of my travail; it is the handiwork of one of my ex-business partners. I got to know him sometime in 2008 when I wanted to do some mining works at Ojo Barracks and he accepted to assist me in procuring a licence from the Ministry of Defence for the purpose. He requested for N15 million as the total cost of procuring the licence, which I gave to him and he was able to procure it. But when we wanted to start job at the barracks, military authorities prevented us on the ground that the documents we were parading were fake.
“When my bail conditions were met on Friday, I insisted that I wouldn’t leave until my relations show up but prison warders violently pushed me out fueling speculation that all was not well. Outside the prison, I noticed some fierce-looking persons and immediately took to my heels while they chased after me. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me shouting for help.
“I scaled a fence and landed on my back in a compound when they started firing gunshots at my direction. It was the piece of broken bottles on the fence that cut my hands, pierced my stomach and tore my clothes into shreds.
“As I speak to you now, my life is not safe; someone wants me dead so as to cover the track of the N92 million he owed the Federal Government as well as the money he owes me,” he said.
