Kidnappers in Aba today released the 15 school children they seized on Monday, but the full story of the militia responsible for the crime is far wilder and more dangerous, and has yet to be told.
Kidnappers in Aba today released the 15 school children they seized on Monday, but the full story of the militia responsible for the crime is far wilder and more dangerous, and has yet to be told.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
While the rulers of the Nigeria and their supporters gathered in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, to celebrate the country’s 50th anniversary of her flag independence today, Abia State, one of Nigeria’s oil producing states, continues to melt away in senseless armed violence.
The violence in the state, which prides itself as “GOD’S OWN STATE “ peaked with the abduction of the 15 pupils of Abayi International School in Aba of in the early morning hours of Monday, September 27th.
The incident took place in the market metropolis of Abia State fondly called Enyinmba City. The kidnappers, travelling in an ash-coloured Toyota Camry, intercepted the Abayi school van, and recklessly brandishing AK47 and G3 assault rifles, ordered the van to follow them, and took the kids to an unknown destination. Our correspondent reliably gathered that the kidnapping was carried out by Azubuike, popularly known as Osisikankpo, an ex- fighter of the Tom Ateke’s Icelander Confraternity.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });
Osisikankpo who previously lived in Port Harcourt, the capital of the Rivers State, relocated to Abia State where he continued to deploy the senseless violence he was using while undergoing his gang apprenticeship with Ateke. The gangster operates throughout the entire areas of Umuafuoka junction, near Ukwakiri in the Obingwa Local Government Area of Abia State, up to Oyigbo in Rivers State. He has been implicated in several cases of kidnapping and other forms of organised crime in his areas of operation.
Aba and other nearby towns and villages have of late been engulfed in absurd cases of criminality. A resident who gave his name as Mr. Okey Nnandi , a trader who fled the restive commercial city in the wake of the violence, lamented to Saharareporters on the phone, “It is sad that the Aba that we used to be proud of is gone. There is no government again. We don’t have a government.”
Since January this year, hordes of residents and others have either been killed or kidnapped by the rampaging Aba gangs:
1. On Tuesday, January 12, 2010, three British nationals and a Columbia contract staff of NetcoDietmann working at the Shell ‘s Afam VI Power plant in the Oyigbo Local Government Area of Rivers State were kidnapped by gunmen who blocked their vehicle at Owaza junction in the Obingwa Loca Government Area of Abia State and whisked them away, shooting to death a mobile police officer who was with them. The victims were John Bennet, Kelvin Gray and Martin Phillip, all Britons, and the Columbia was Fabian Sanchez . Our correspondent was informed that the victims’ employer and the Rivers State government paid a ransom to the kidnappers before they were released, contrary to their claim that no ransom was paid. Saharareporters can also report authoritatively that Oisikankpo was responsible for that job.
2. On Monday, April 19, heavily armed gunmen kidnapped two German nationals’ they were later released. On Sunday, May 23, a kidnap gang seized 3 Chinese nationals and 9 Nigerians working for the Aba based Nigerian Steel Company (NSC) they were released after payment of some ransom money to the kidnappers. They were released on Saturday, May 29.
3. On July 10, Mrs. Victoria Ori, 48, was kidnapped by a 4-member gang, who demanded a whopping N20 million. Ori spent 16 days with her captors, and although the Abia police boss, Mr. Jonathan Johnson claimed that no ransom was paid, a security official who was involved in the negotiation confided in our reporter that “some ransom was paid but not the amount they demanded”.
4. A day after the kidnap of Mrs. Ori, journalists travelling through Aba after a meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State capital were abducted at Umuafuoka junction near Ukwakiri in the Obingwa Local Government Area by a rampaging gang led by the notorious Osisikankpo who demanded a monstrous N250 million . Those kidnapped are Wahab Oba, chairman of the Lagos State council of the NUJ, Adolphus Okonkwo, secretary of Zone G of the NUJ and Slyvester Okereke, acting secretary, Lagos, NUJ. Others are Sola Oyeyipo, a Lagos-based journalist and their driver. Alhough, the police claimed that no ransom was paid to the gang, but a very reliable source revealed to Saharareporters in Enugu that N30 million was paid before hostages were left off the kidnappers hook.
5. On Tuesday, August 24, a gang led by a young man popularly called STONE that also specialises in kidnapping and ransom collection, and which operates mostly around the Osisioma Local Government Area of Abia State, robbed five commercial banks in the Osisioma area near Aba. They killed police officers guarding the banks and took away a whopping sum of money. Stone confirmed to our reporter that he was responsible for the operation; he said he was ready to accept amnesty and stop his criminal lifestyle. He said he does not trust the governor, Theodore Orji, a former staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) who reportedly rigged election the 2003 governorship elections in favour of Orji Uzor Kalu, his predecessor and estranged godfather, who rewarded him with the governorship position.
6. On Sunday, September 7, gunmen numbering about 15 invaded the Jerusalem for All Nations Church at Umuneke community in the Ukwa West Local Government Area of Abia State where over 5,000 worshippers were praying. They abducted the church pastor, David Kelechi, fondly called Christ Junior by his members, and took him to an unknown destination; Chief Lambert Nmecha , a politician, was gunned down during the incident.
7. On Saturday, September 11, an Indian national working with an electronic company in Aba was stopped by a five-member kidnapper. When he refused to enter his would-be abductors’ car, they shot him dead and fled the scene.
8. On Friday, September 17, Dr. Stanley Uche, a gynaecologist and proprietor of Victory Christian Hospital in Aba, was kidnapped on his way to his younger sister’s funeral in his Imo State home town, travelling with his wife. Few days later, his wife returned from organizing a whopping N30 million ransom the criminals demanded, at a location given to her. After giving the heartless kidnappers the money in order to set her husband free, she was shockingly given a lifeless body.
9. On Saturday, September 25, two mobile policemen on patrol in their new Hilux jeep provided to them by Abia State government were killed in an ambush coordinated by Osisikankpo’s gang at Umuafor in Ukwu in the Obingwa Local Government Area. The vehicle was burnt by the gunmen. The Abia State police command lamented that in the last six months it has lost 27 of its men to attacks by the gangs, and Corporals Isaiah Eziaku and John Alumona were arrested for allegations of connivance with the criminal gangs.
The attack on policemen is proof nobody is safe in the Abia carnage, even the armed. Saharareporters investigations indicate that Obingwa, Obehie and Ugwunagbo remain the breeding grounds of the gangs. But some of the gunmen operating in the state also say they would have surrendered their weapons and accepted amnesty, but that the governor has told them in secret that he will use them as election militia in 2011, and later disarm them. Orji is alleged to have embezzled state funds, some of which he has used to acquire choice landed properties in Umuahia, the state capital. In August, Governor Orji resigned from the Progressive People’s Party (PPA) that brought him to power, and joined the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA); he later dumped APGA and is now a member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
The weak and corrupt governor of Abia State is now a good associate of President Goodluck Jonathan.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });