Daily Independent (Lagos)
Ben Duru
6 July 2009
It has been revealed that no fewer than 700 motorcycles used for transportation in Abia State were purchased by their owners principally for kidnapping in different parts of the state.
Emerging facts indicate that Ukwa and Ngwa areas have been identified as most notorious in the act.
Investigations have revealed that some of the elders of the various communities and their youth leaders are in the payroll of the kidnap gangs who receive huge handouts for protecting them and for volunteering information on events in Government House and the Police Headquarters.
Sunday Independent investigations revealed that this had accounted for the inability of the police and other security agencies to completely root out kidnapping in Abia State despite the efforts made by the authorities to equip the police and other security agencies with working tools.
According to police sources, efforts are now on by the command to mop up these motorcycles and apprehend the operators as a way of getting at the kingpins and bringing them to book.
Meanwhile, Abia State House of Assembly lawmakers have called on the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mike Okiro and President Umaru Yar'Adua to withdraw the Police Commissioner, Edgar Tam Nanakumo and the Director of the State Security Services (SSS) from Abia. They said, through a motion, that the officers had not been able to contain the avalanche of kidnappings in the state with the attendant loss of huge revenue by the state through the incidents.
It was gathered that efforts by the commercial motorcycles riders union in the state to identify and forward the names of those fingered in the business had proved abortive because of the loose ways the business was operated and which accounted for the ban.
According to sources, security operatives had penetrated the union and were able to monitor some of the operators. It was through the surveillance that the police apprehended some of them and obtained confessional statements on the purchase of the motorcycles.
Investigation showed that the kingpins resorted to purchase of the motorcycles and recruitment of some willing young men to act as spies in their areas of operation.
Sunday Independent was told that one of the killed kidnap kingpin, Ching Chong, bought over 200 motorcycles for the youths he had recruited and which he had used, not only to monitor the activities of the police, but to give information on the movements of their would be victims.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Daily Independent. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
