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On Saturday, June 13, Seyi Adekunle, Pastor of Living Faith Church, aka Winners’ Chapel, was praying with some of his members at his church, located opposite Margaret Ekpo International Airport, Calabar, to prepare for the next day’s service when gun men stormed the place and dragged him into their vehicle and drove off.
While one of the gunmen, who identified Seyi, was masked, others wore no mask. It was 48 hours after the pastor was whisked away that his abductors contacted the church through his phone to demand for N80 million ransom. After negotiations lasting three days, some money exchanged hands and he was set free six days after the kidnapping.
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The kidnapping for ransom is not the first in Calabar. But the sore point is that the police and other security agencies have not been able to find solution to the menace. Increasingly, the serene Cross River State capital.
The cases of kidnapping alongside other criminal activities are making residents to question if this is still the Calabar they used to know for its quiet and calm atmosphere.
Between February and July 2015, there have been over 15 reported kidnap cases in the state with majority of them taking place in Calabar. Interestingly, none of the kidnap cases has ended tragically with the death of the victim except that of Pastor Ubi, an Assemblies of God cleric, who was kidnapped in Usumutong and beheaded allegedly, over land squabble between Usumutong and their Bahomono kinsmen, Ediba.
Basically, the motivation for the kidnapping is for ransom and, once the purpose is achieved,the victim is released and the plan to abduct another victim is hatched. What the police have not been able to establish is if the kidnappers are operating as one or separate teams.
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The first notable kidnap case was inFebruary when Obong Udeh, the owner of Udensco petrol station located along Eta Agba Road was abducted and taken toan unknown destination and the family made to cough out millions of Naira before he regained his freedom. A source close to the man told Sunday Vanguard that, after leaving his office onthe evening of February 7, Udeh was driving to his residence at Eta Agbo Layout when he noticed through his rear mirror that a vehicle was giving him close marking. “When he saw that the car behind him was too close for comfort, he suspected that something was wrong. By the time he got to his residence gates, he stopped his Prado SUV and decided to run to the next house but he did not go far before the men got hold of him and forced him into the booth of their car and drove off”, the source said.
Another oil merchant, Chief Agbor, was also abducted at Ikotenim, Calabar, with ransom paid before he was set free.
In March, at the peak of the 2015 electoral campaigns, the Labour Party’s House of Representatives candidate, Chief Dominic Aqua Edem, was abducted in his Essien Street home in Calabar South and ferried into the creeks and kept for one week. He was released only after his campaign funds had been depleted by taking a huge ransom.
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Next, some hoodlums stormed the famous Watt Market and abducted Obong Obio, a popular trader, and kept him in the creeks until they got ransom from his family before he was set free.
In May, some kidnappers went up north to the dusty city of Obudu where a businessman and proprietor of Sunday and Andoya Aluminum Company, Mr. Sunday Anagwe, was abducted.
The man was kidnapped at about 12 am on May 12, at his residence located behind Government Primary School, Udigie, along Ranch Road, Obudu. and whisked away to an unknown place. His abductors initially demanded N10 million from his wife, but after negotiation, got N1.5 million before he was allowed to go home
It was the turn of Pastor Seyi Adekunle to be kidnapped in June. This month (July), there have been two abductions in the state, one in Obudu; the other in Calabar. In the Obudu incident, some hoodlums, penultimate Tuesday, at about 2am, seized Mr. Godwin Anyating, the Chief Librarian of the Federal College of Education, Obudu. He was not freed until five days later after his wife, Felicia, also a lecturer in the school had coughed out one million Naira.
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The latest is the kidnapping of a six year old boy, Monday, Master Eyo Antigha , son of Michael Anatigha , proprietor of Faith Nursery and Primary School, Anantigha who was abducted as he alighted from the vehicle that took him to school that morning. A young man who had been idling around the school entrance grabbed him as soon as he came down from the car and raced towards the creeks and a speed boat emerged and took the boy and his captor and sped away.
The spate of kidnapping led the Nigerian Air Force to bombard the creeks hide out of the kidnappers. NAF plane, M 24 gunship, for two days bombed the creeks along Cross River and Akwa Ibom waterways, targetting sea criminals and kidnappers.
Air Commodore Charles Ohwo, Commander, 207 Mobility Group, Calabar, told Sunday Vanguard that the bombardment was in response to the increasing wave of criminal activities in Cross River and Akwa Ibom States where the criminals are using difficult to access areas as hide outs and operational base.
He said several kidnappings and criminal activities had taken place in Cross River State in recent past including the attack on the Marine Police Station at the Inyang Edem Beach penultimate Sunday night. “The increasing wave of crime along the Cross River and Akwa Ibom waterways prompted the NAF authorities to deploy M24 gunship to bombard the creeks to rid the area of these hoodlums”, he added.
Governor Ben Ayade, also worried by the high rate of kidnapping, has sent a Bill to Cross River State House of Assembly to seek death penalty for convicted kidnappers and the state to confiscate their property.
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