C’River to transfer 10 kidnap suspects to Abia

Cross River State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Henry Fadairo

Following an order from the Magistrate court in Calabar, the Cross River State Command of the Nigeria Police on Monday said arrangements were being fine-tuned to transfer 10 kidnap suspects in its custody to Abia State for prosecution.

This came just as the state Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Hogan Bassey, said it was not true that policemen collected money from parents of stolen children to facilitate investigations.

Ten suspects were last Friday arraigned by the Criminal Investigation Department of the state police headquarters before the Chief Magistrate’s Court in Calabar in connection with the series of child kidnap in the state.

ADVERTISEMENT

Majority of the suspects were apprehended in Aba, Abia State, where the stolen children were allegedly sold, while the kids were themselves abducted from Calabar and environ in Cross River State.

In a letter dated September 18, 2015 and signed by the Chief Magistrate, Mr. E.O Ekokem, and made available to Southern City News, the list of those to be prosecuted in Abia State included Samuel Obu, a Cross River State indigene; Emma Obu (Cross River); Victor Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom); Mba Anthony (Cross River); Abraham Anthony (Akwa Ibom) and John Nyong (Akwa Ibom.

Others were Oluchi Ndukwe (a nurse from Abia State); Ijeoma Alozie (another nurse from Abia State); Ugochi Okorie (Abia State) and Benedict Ndubuisi, alias Mama Aba (Abia State).

The PPRO said arrangements were being made to transfer the suspects to Abia as directed by the court for prosecution.

“We have charged all the suspects in our custody to court since the judicial workers just called of their eight months old strike. This 10 kidnap suspects have been ordered to be taken back to Abia State for prosecution. We shall comply,” he stressed.

Speaking on the claims by parents of missing kids, that they paid money to facilitate arrests in Aba, Bassey said it was not true, stressing that the state CID had continuously made logistic provisions for officers investigating cases of child kidnap within and outside Cross River.

He said, “The CID has consistently facilitated logistics for officers going on external operations. These men have gone to Aba, Port Harcourt and Lagos at various times to get suspects arrested. They sometimes stay for as long as five days.”