Abia youths spar the military over complicity in commercial kidnapping

(By our correspondents)

Tension reached boiling point along the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway on Wednesday when community youths from some sections of the Abia North Senatorial District of Abia State and neighbouring Uturu and Ihube communities of Imo State nearly clashed with belligerent military patrol teams over allegations of complicity in the burgeoning ransom based kidnapping in the area.

To suppress the community from speaking out, the military petrol personnel ran into Isuochi community in their numbers and shot at men and women who gathered at the Umunneochi Local Government headquarters to protest brazen mop up of local people in commercial ransom seeking kidnaps.

The action of the military team has created panic and pandemonium, causing students boarding in schools to prepare for external examinations to vacate abruptly and head home. Some public and private schools in the area are said have shut down as precautionary measure.

The communities have regularly cried out over constant kidnapping and killings by gunmen suspected to be Fulani bandits cohabiting with cattle merchants in the area.

The situation, they said, is made worse by constant harassment by men of the military that mount numerous checkpoints which, according to them, targeted law abiding people while bandits, they alleged, are allowed to roam free.

 A senior police officer in charge of Abia State command of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) deployed to douse the tension, Mr John Bull (suspected to be a field name), addressed the youths and also indicted the military for compounding the security situation in the area.

He confirmed the incessant reports of kidnapping in the area, pointing at the “mammy market” at the Lokpanta cattle market as the squandering point for ransom windfalls.

He expressed the sympathy of the Commissioner of Police in the state who, according to him, had deployed a new incident response commandant to help address rampant kidnapping in the area. He corroborated reports that community sons and daughters returning to home villages have been abducted for ransom just at their doorsteps.

“The military is not helping us on this matter,” he declared in his address to the protesting youths. He said the police have spotted ransom squandering spots at the Lokpanta cattle market and determined that Fulani men are the masterminds.

“There is no single day that people are not abducted for ransom. Almost every family in these axes have coughed out millions of Naira to secure release of an abducted member,” said one of the youth leaders who organized a peaceful protest,

The Oracle Today reports that hundreds of youths from Umunneochi council area of Abia State on Wednesday trooped out to the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway to express their pain over the flow of violence from gunmen cohabiting with cattle dealers in the Lokpanta area of Umunneochi Local Government Area of Abia State.

The gunmen who are said to have started operating in the area since 2020 when they were allegedly shipped down during the coronavirus lockdown. Local people stated that whereas the cattle dealers had operated their market in the area peacefully for decades, they have been infiltrated by Fulani bandits who are now suspected to be pillaging the villages in the hilly boundary communities in Imo, Abia, Ebonyi, Enugu and Anambra States.

Communities of Ihube and Okigwe Imo State; Isuochi, Leru, Uturu, Lokpa and Isuikwuato in Abia State; Lekwensi, Achi, Mgbowo and Ugwueme in Enugu State; as well as Owere Ezukala in Anambra State have reported constant cases of kidnapping of local people by bandits who have been positively identified by victims and ransom negotiators as Fulani.

One of the leaders of the youths that participated in the coordinated protest said the kidnappers have made the Lokpanta-Okigwe axis of the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway one of the riskiest routes on earth despite the numerous military checkpoints that dot all the nooks and crannies in the Southeast states of the country.  

It would be recalled that the Methodist Church paid the Fulani bandits whopping N100 million to secure the release the Prelate, His Eminence, Dr Kanu Uche, and his bishops who were on Sunday kidnapped on the Leru road as they tried to connect the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway after attending a church event in Isuochi.

Banking sources hinted that massive cash withdrawals were hitting the accounts of the church all day on Monday, several hours after the prelate and his men were kidnapped. Church sources also confirmed that diocesan leaders were busy piling cash together for the prelate’s captives.

We gathered that the prelate was kidnapped at a spot less than 100 meters from a military checkpoint between Leru and Ihube along the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway. The spot was also less than 100 meters from another military checkpoint at Lomara junction in Isuochi. It was about 150 meters from mobile police checkpoint at Ndiawa Isuochi, the route which the prelate reportedly took to join the expressway before the kidnappers struck.

Church sources and ransom negotiators told local sources that the Prelate was held just behind a military checkpoint at Lomara junction between Isuochi in Abia State and Ihube in Imo State. The spot is the same place a busload of local government employees returning from a colleague’s wedding were kept for night s before tens of million Naira was delivered to the kidnappers. Also, local hunters from Ngodo Isuochi, our sources counted, were also held briefly at the same area just under the nose of the military patrol base donated by Umunneochi Local Government Area of Abia State.

The kidnappers’ haven, our sources said, was deliberately created by the military patrol team by blocking traffic passage through the Ibi River bridge from Isuochi to Ihube. The secured area, local sources explained, is central to four kidnapping hotspots: the Ndiawa-Leru road, the Leru-Lomara Road, the Lomara Junction-Spiritan University road, and the Leru-Ihube expressway.  

During the Wednesday protest, the youths had carried placards condemning the military personnel manning security checkpoints in the area, strongly inferring their complicity in the high profile kidnapping rackets going on the area.

Video footage of the protest showed the youths denouncing the army and demanding their immediate withdrawal for the area as the credible resolution of rising kidnapping incidents in the communities.

Some of the placards carried by the protesters read: “We say no to military checkpoints,” “Say no to kidnapping in Umunneochi;” and “Lokpanta cattle market should go.”

Earlier in the day, the military personnel stationed at the Lomara Junction which shields and protects the ransom delivery point had stormed the Nkwoagu headquarters of the Umunneochi Local council area with scattered gunshots, deliberating creating panic in the community in a vain attempt to scare the youths from embarking on the protest.

It was gathered that the organizers of the protest had served notice to all security formations in the area to avoid any breaches and avert possible confrontation.

However, the protest proceeded and the youths marched to the expressway where they caused impasse to declare their message to the commuting community and exonerate local youths from the constant kidnapping of travellers on the Leru-Ihube junction.

The response of the military was to storm the Nkwoagu local government headquarters with automatic weapons, firing recklessly into several directions and sending the local men and women scampering into different directions.

But for the intervention of the local government officials, the action of the military men would have resulted in bloody clash with local youths who, our sources said, stood their grounds in the face of gun harassment by soldiers.

Chief of Staff to the local government administration, Mr Christian Azubuike, told our correspondents that the rising tension in the area was being resolved at by the representatives of the communities in the Abia State government.

He said a resolution of the security crisis in the area would soon be resolved, adding that the commanding military officers in the charge of the area have been notified of the development.