Gov. Udom Emmanuel
‘My in-laws now kidnapping road construction workers,’ Gov Emmanuel cries out
Akwa Ibom Governor, Mr Udom Emmanuel, has condemned the deplorable security situation in Oruk Anam Local Government Area of the state, even as he lamented that his in-laws have now resorted to kidnapping road construction workers deployed to fix the communities.
Emmanuel, whose wife, Martha, hails from the local government area, expressed worry over the rising level of criminal activities by youths of the area who have made it impossible for government to commence development projects like road rehabilitation for the communities.
This is even as the state’s Police Command has warned traditional medicine practitioners and native doctors alike in the local government area to desist from engaging in initiating youths into cultism and making charms for them in the name of fortifying them in their criminal acts.
Governor Udom Emmanuel, while on a visit to communities in the area, last weekend, blamed the abandonment of road works in the Local Government on cases of high cases kidnapping, killing of construction workers and security agencies.
Emmanuel, therefore, sued for peace to enable the construction work to resume with the setting in of the dry season, lamenting that no fewer than four different contractors had been hired to work on the sites because of insecurity.
“When we brought contractors here to work on these roads, my in-laws were the first to kidnap the contractors; they even killed some army officers”, Gov. Emmanuel lamented.
Meanwhile, Chairman of the Oruk Anam council, Mr Kingsley Frank, has led police and other security operatives as well as angry youths to a forest in Ikot Oku Ibiet village in Oruk Anam Ward 3, where some deity shrines were set ablaze and some persons arrested in the process of being fortified with charms for criminal activities.
The council chairman frowned at the activities of some native doctors in his domain who he accused of destroying the future of several youths in the area through unwholesome indoctrinations and initiation into cultism.
According to the council chairman, such illegalities would no longer be allowed to thrive under his watch.
“The future of the youths as leaders of tomorrow should not be allowed to be wasted through cultism. And, by this, we are sending a warning to native doctors in the habits of fortifying these youths with charms to take to crimes to desist or be made to face the law”, he warned.
Several suspects were arrested for kidnapping, murder and armed robbery in the area including a blind 70-year-old woman with a human skull, who claimed her late husband was a native doctor.
Commenting on the development, Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), for the Akwa Ibom Command, Superintendent Odiko Macdon, who paraded the suspects at the command’s headquarters at Ikot Akpanabia, near Uyo, reiterated the state police Commissioner Amiengheme Andrew’s zero-tolerance for any form of crime.
He, therefore, assured that the suspects would be prosecuted at the conclusion of investigations into the various cases, adding that those found guilty would be made to face any degree of penalty fit for their crimes.
