Suspected robbers, Saturday morning nearly flogged over 18 passengers to death for refusing to “cooperate with them.”

The incident is coming barely 24 hours after some persons were robbed at Onyirada hills, along the Aho-Ukwo road.

DAILY POST gathered that the incident happened around 12am few kilometres away from Orokam, in Benue State.

It was learnt that the robbers, numbering three, who were armed with dangerous weapons, ambushed the road users and carted away their valuables.

One of the victims, Sunny told our reporter that others who refused to cooperate were beaten mercilessly.

“I was nearly shot because I tried to drag with them. They hit my head with gun because I confronted one of them. Other people who were not with enough money were almost beaten to death,” one of the victims, who was seen bleeding seriously disclosed.

Explaining how he ran into the dare-devil men, the visibly angry man said he was coming from Lagos when he encountered them along the road.

“When I first sighted them from afar, I thought they were police officers and I had to stop for them. Before I realized it, three guys surrounded my vehicle with guns pointed at me, asking us to come down.

“I met other passengers who were robbed and beaten mercilessly on the floor.

“When they asked me to bring out money, I tried to prove stubborn and one of them angrily hit my head with his gun. This incident happened after we had descended from the Okwuja hill, along Orokam-Owukpa highway.

“They collected over N350 thousand from me. My wife was with another 150 thousnd in her bag, they also made away with it. We were heading to the village to complete our building project, but the money is gone,” he said amid sobs.

Another victim said while the robbery operation lasted, security personnel were nowhere to be found.

“After they incident, we ran to the police station in Ukwo but no one was on ground to attend to us”, he said.

Meanwhile, when DAILY POST visited the police outpost in Ukwo the previous day, only a police officer was seen on duty. He, however, refused to talk to him.