By Emma Nnadozie, Crime Editor
Abuja — Two Police officers attached to the Office of the Inspector-General of Police in Abuja and two journalists with Vanguard newspapers narrowly escaped death, Wednesday evening at Shabu village, Nasarawa State when irate youths, protesting against the death of their colleagues, held them hostage for hours.

The youths, numbering over a hundred and armed with dangerous weapons, were protesting the killing of three of their colleagues by a motorist along the ever-busy Lafia-Akwanga-Eggon Expressway.

The Police officers and Vanguard Crime Editor, Emma Nnadozie, including Swill Marvua of Vanguard Special Project Unit, were in Nassarawa State in preparation for the forth-coming National Conference on 2011 elections being organised by Vanguard newspapers in conjunction with Nigeria Police Force, when the incident took place. The team ran into the irate youths along the expressway around 6 p.m. while on their way back to Abuja from Lafia, capital of Nasarawa State.

The youths who were carrying placards with inscriptions calling on government to stop the incessant killings of their people on the highway by creating speed breakers, barricaded the busy expressway with tree trunks, dis-used tyres and other objects.

Their action prevented travellers from having easy passage on the road while the armed youths openly protested along the way.

The situation took a different dimension around 6 p.m when the unsuspecting uniformed police officers and Vanguard journalists, including two armed mobile Policemen in their escort, ran into the crowd at Shabu village. The youths, on sighting the black Police Hilux Pick-up, decided to vent their anger on them by crowding the vehicle and insisting that the occupants must disembark to be dealt with.

While they were brandishing their weapons and threatening to set them ablaze with the vehicle, Vanguard Crime Editor quickly identified himself as a reporter assigned to cover their protest.  That brought temporary relief as some of the youths hailed his presence but the obstinate ones insisted that he must come down to interview and take their photographs, which he  obliged.

Events took a different turn few minutes later when a Police Corporal from one of the stations in the area arrived the scene and ordered that they should allow his officers to proceed on their journey. This infuriated the youths as they now decreed that both the journalists and the Police Officers must be made to pay the prize for the death of their colleagues instantly.

At this stage, the Crime Editor who was busy recording their action pictorially cleverly stepped aside as if he was taking another shot and quickly succeeded in sending a save-our-soul text message to the newly posted Commissioner of Police in Nasarawa State, Mr. Obiakor who swiftly detailed a team of military patrol team and Mobile Policemen to the scene to rescue them.

By the time the team arrived, there was stampede as most of the stranded travellers and motorists numbering thousands, who were being terrorized by the angry youths, ran in different directions to save their lives.

The road was, however, cleared by the security men around 8 p.m. for motorists while some of the youths kept on threatening openly that the barricade must continue until government creates speed breakers on the expressway to stop the wanton killing of their kinsmen by motorists.