Anxiety in Nimbo community over abducted council’s chief security adviser

Tension is high in Nimbo community, Uzo-Uwani Local Council of Enugu State following the non-release of Mr. Ejiofor Enechi, the Chief Security Adviser to the council chairman, Cornnel Onwubuya, two months after he was kidnapped with the alleged ransom demanded by his abductors already paid.

The Guardian learnt that his family was made to pay N2 million last December for his freedom. Hope for Enechi’s rescue was further dimmed last week following the arrest of two suspected members of the gang, who in their confessional statements to the police, said they left the victim in the custody of their fleeing gang members two months ago.

Nimbo, coincidentally, is the same community which came under heavy attack from suspected Fulani herdsmen, last year, an incident, which left scores dead.

A relation, who craved anonymity, pleaded with the captors to free his brother. His words: “I don’t want to believe that Ejiofor is dead. He has been missing for the past two months. He was kidnapped on his way home and the kidnappers collected a N2 million ransom. But as I speak to you, he is nowhere to be found. This has convinced us that it was not ordinary kidnap.

“We got more shockers when the two suspects arrested by the police said they carried out the dastardly act in connivance with some members of the Nimbo vigilante group.

“We learnt that the kidnap was planned and executed by members of this very community because they felt Ejiofor was frustrating some of their criminal acts.

“We are begging them to please release him, even if they have killed him, let them make his corpse available so that we can give him a decent burial.

“Let the police do their work too because the kidnappers are not strangers. An attempt has been made for once to arrest them but they fled since then. We cannot sleep for two months now as a result of this uncertainty.”

The community’s traditional ruler, Igwe John Akor, acknowledging that the settlement had been grieved over the incident, noted: “I feel so sad and disappointed. We are not happy at all. He is our son and we do not like what happened to him at all.”