By Emma Amaize
HIS real name is Obioma Nwankwo, alias Osisikankwu, a former hunter and ex-fighter of the Icelander Confraternity, founded by ex-militant leader and Rivers State warlord, Ateke Tom. Between him and 10 other kidnap kingpins, notably, Mopol -a dismissed policeman, Stone, Tallest, 10-10, IK in Ukwa West local government area; Onyeme – a dismissed soldier and King Solomon in Abala; Dan Fryo and Susu in Umuezi axis, Abia State was held captive in the past two years until their handgrip went beyond the elbow region, in the last two to three months.

The kidnap kingpins were mostly youths who belonged to one cult or the other and have some of their fellow cultists in high places in the government of the state, who used them to intimidate political opponents and give them protection from arrest by security agents when trouble comes. One or two of them even hold government appointments. The son of one of them who is a member of the Viking Confraternity was said to be coordinating activities for the gangsters in government circle.

What, however, made the situation pathetic is that security agents were fraternizing with the kidnappers and so, instead of arresting them, some policemen collected money and looked the other way. Those who lodged reports with the police on the activities of the kidnappers did so at their own risk, as villains came back to confront them with exact details of what they (informants) told the police and killed them.

A traditional ruler and wife were assassinated by the kidnappers after the royal father squealed to the police on their operations. It was the same police the matter was reported to that allegedly sold the royal father.  From the various accounts of victims, making a report to the police on the activities of the kidnappers in Abia was hazardous.

Unfortunately, the government of Abia State saw reporting of the actual events transpiring in the state as sabotage and did everything to hold back the true situation until matters got out of hand. The kidnappers saw the business as a hit and refused to stop even when Governor Theodore Orji granted them amnesty to drop their arms. Osisikankwu and his gangsters became even more daring and kidnapped school children and NYSC girls.

He operated throughout the entire areas of Umuafuoka junction, near Ukwakiri in the Obingwa Local Government Area of Abia State, up to Oyigbo in Rivers State and had been implicated in several cases of kidnapping in the state.

The outlaw is not a stranger to the police who had since declared him wanted. He was supposedly tipped off by a top official about the raid of military task force on his stronghold and he melted into the thin air. However, a notorious criminal/kidnapper identified as Escapee, believed to be on errand for a government official was arrested by security agents with an undisclosed sum of money, running into millions of naira.

At Ntigha Uzo, Ibeme and Abala communities where Onyeme, King Solomon and other kingpins held sway, traditional rulers and politicians sponsored their activities for fear of being killed or run out of town. Over 100 kidnap camps existed in the areas.

The police at Akpaa Police Station abandoned the station when they could no longer handle the superior firepower of the boys. With the police scared to their boots, the kidnappers spread their tentacles and started mounting blockades on the Aba- Ikot Ekpene expressway for unsuspecting travelers from Akwa Ibom and Cross River States, who were on their way to Lagos, Port Harcourt or even Aba for business trips.

No fewer than 24 innocent travellers were said to have been killed and dumped inside the bush. Like the different cases in Aba and other communities in the state, they raped the girls in turn. Having conquered Akpaa, Abala, Ntigha, Uzo and Ibeme , they  moved into Ovom area where the entire villagers were compelled to flee their homes. Over 5,000 houses have been totally abandoned in the community.

The general top-dog, Osisikankwu was so powerful in the government of the state that he allegedly influenced the appointment of a local government chairman in his domain, Ukwa-West.  His appointed chairman who is currently facing trial for aiding and abetting kidnapping visited the kidnap kingpin habitually in his den in the local government and brought cows and money to him.

Two of the cows brought by him to Osisikankwu had not been slaughtered as at the time the task force raided the camp. The General Officer Commanding, GOC, “82” Division, Enugu, Major-General Sarkin Yarkin-Bello confirmed that soldiers saw the cows. The local government chairman, who is the chief security officer of the area knew the kidnappers and their location but refused to do the right thing.

Of course, the hideouts of Osisikankwu, Stone and others in the local government are not only known to the former council boss, the police in the area also know the hideouts; but the tradition was to collect money and keep quiet.

Now that the former chairman and some that were later arrested have been charged to court for aiding and abetting kidnappers in their area, what would happen to the policemen that were involved in similar act. None is known to have been charged yet.

Some of those who spoke to this reporter said the governor should be asked to explain his relationship with Osisikankwu and why he dropped a local government chairman he had announced for Ukwa West for a candidate recommended by the kidnap kingpin. All the major kidnap kingpins were known by the chairmen of their local governments and the Divisional Police Officers, DPOs in the respective areas, but, they closed their eyes to their dastard activities, according to an informed source.

“The police took bribe and maintained they don’t know the location of the kidnappers and when the military task force came, some policemen tried to dissuade them by taking them to other places and telling them that the boys were armed with sophisticated weapons. Even now, policemen have gone to the families of some of the suspects in custody, urging them to raise money so that they would assist them to secure bail for their loved ones”, the source added.

He said: “Osisikankwu and his colleagues took over the state because their activities were not checked on time, they had politicians, some very highly placed in government who they worked for in the past and who used them to intimidate their opponents. They stole and extorted enough money to bribe the police and so, they were not challenged. That is why they could carry out up to 30 kidnap operations on the Port-Harcourt-Aba expressway in one day unchallenged”.

If the military task force did not come into the state on September 27 or thereabout when it did, the situation in Abia would have become more horrifying, as the kidnappers who had seized the entire state planned to dare the governor by moving into Umahia to tell him that amnesty meant nothing to them. At that stage, the security situation in the state was awful and the governor’s panic-stricken response to corporate organisations fleeing the state was that he would revoke their certificate of occupancy.

Major-General  Yarkin-Bello told Vanguard Metro in his Asa military base  that it was possible that the kidnappers were being sponsored by some powerful persons and businessmen outside Abia State from the way the venture was going.

With the current military presence in Ukwa-West, it is difficult for Osisikankwu and Susu, who are on the run, to return to their communities in the foreseeable future to lord it over the people again.

Susu’s den is presently occupied by soldiers and Onyeme and others have fled Abala. The challenge now is for the task force to take control of the southern part of the state, which is where most kidnapping activities take place, after which the government should create the necessary environment for those who fled their communities to return home.

Following threats by the fleeing kidnappers, however, to return when the military task force would have left to wreak more havoc during the 2011elections, there are strong suggestions by the residents that a state of emergency should still be declared in the state, until and after the elections, while the Commissioner of Police and Divisional Police Officers in the state should be redeployed.

The proponents want Governor Orji to be removed as well and a soldier in the rank of Colonel be appointed as military administrator, and all the traditional rulers found to be covering the tracks of the kidnappers in their domains should face prosecution for complicity, aiding and abetting criminals.