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The Untold Story: Aba In The Firm Grip Of Kidnap Militia

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.

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 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.

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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. 


 

 

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