Last week, Peregbakumo Oyawerikumo, aka ‘The Master’, was finally caught and shot by the Nigerian army. Oyawerikumo and his Egbesu Boys had styled themselves as local Robin Hoods, taking riches from oil companies in the Niger Delta, but they won’t be much missed. In the remote swamp town of Enekorogha, their demise will be celebrated, because this was the scene of their most notorious crime.
It was here, last October, that the Egbesu Boys kidnapped Ian Squire, an optician from Surrey who was working at a clinic, and three fellow Britons: Cambridgeshire GP David Donovan and his wife Shirley, and optometrist Alanna Carson, from Northern Ireland.
On their first day in captivity, the Master’s men unexpectedly handed Mr Squire the acoustic guitar they had taken from his lodgings. Squire played ‘Amazing Grace’, which cheered his co-hostages, but apparently rattled one of the more trigger-happy gunmen, who fired in the group’s direction as a warning to quieten down.
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