Bus company denies rape as police arrests suspects

Four suspects have been arrested by the Ogun State Police Command on Tuesday, in connection to the robbery attack last Saturday on an Ekene Dili Chukwu luxury bus from Enugu which had 42 female secondary school students on board.
The driver was also arrested, as he was accused of not Confirming the arrest, spokesman for the Ogun State Police Command, Mr Olumuyiwa Adejobi, said: “The Ogun State Police Command has arrested the driver of the luxury bus that conveyed the Enugu students who were attacked by some hoodlums at Ogbere along the ever busy Ijebu/Benin expressway at 11. 40p.m. on Saturday, 31/3/2012 and four others who have been suspected to have carried out the operation.The other suspects arrested are Oni Olopari, Innocent Omule, Gbenga Adebayo and Samuel Luca. Driver of the bus has identified Samuel Luca as one of those who attacked them that night.”
t listening to motorists who had warned him of the armed robbers roadblock that lay ahead, therefore putting the lives of the students in the vehicle in danger.
“The driver is not new to robbers’ modus operandi and should have stopped to find out what the problem was.” police sources said.

Three days after the incident, the company’s General Manager, Charles Obiora, in a newspaper interview(not BusinessDay) blamed the attack on some parents of the students, who he claims insisted that their wards be brought to Lagos since they had already reached Sagamu which is not far from Lagos, thereby breaking the transport company’s policy of night travel. He also denied that any of the students were raped.
“It is true that the bus ran into a gang of armed robbers, but about 17 of the students had disembarked on the order of the hoodlums while they were being searched and robbed of their valuables and at the sight of a patrol van that was on routine patrol of the road, one of the robbers jumped into the bus and zoomed off into the bush not too far from the scene of incident.The vehicle and the remaining 25 students on board were later recovered where they were abandoned.I can tell you that nobody was raped and I challenge any parent who said his or her daughter was raped to come up with a medical report from a government hospital to that effect.” he said in the interview.