*Say child kidnapping on the increase

By Tony Edike

ENUGU—Enugu State Police Command, yesterday, paraded 249  suspected kidnappers arrested from different parts of the state in the last few months.

Already, 44 of the suspects had been charged to court for the offence of kidnap,  while 250 others are still being  investigated by the command for offences committed from 2007 to 2010.

The State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Danazumi Job Doma, who disclosed this while parading some of the suspects before newsmen in Enugu, said  conspiracy and kidnap of children ranked high among the kidnap cases in the state.

The CP said this had become very  disturbing to the command but  assured that strategies had  been mapped out to ensure that no kidnap case, especially of children, was recorded again in Enugu.

The most traumatic, according to him, is the case of Joshua Iheanacho and Basil Uwakwe who abducted Chidiebere Egwuatu and Tochina Okefi in 2007.

Doma said “Egwuatu was four months old, while Okefi was one-year-old when they were kidnapped from their parents and sold to the family of Sylvester Eleseazor in Lagos for Six Hundred Thousand Naira.

“The two suspects have confessed to the crime and led police to Lagos where the children were recovered and have since been re-united with their families, while the suspects have been charged to court.”

One of the suspects, Uwakwe, told reporters that they indulged in kidnapping because “we don’t have any job that we do, so we did it to survive and not die of hunger.”

In another incidence, Nkechinyere Omoke, Frankline Isu, Chinenye Ochor and Ngozi Onovo were arrested and the commissioner stated that their arrest led to the recovery of two children namely, Chidera Okeke (M) and Amarachukwu Oji (F), who, he said, were stolen from their parents on November 4, 2010. The two children have also been reunited with their parents.

Meanwhile, Enugu State Police Command also paraded 146 suspected armed robbers, 111 of whom, it said, had been charged to court, with 35 still under investigation.

The police also paraded alleged cult leaders of the Institute of Management and Technology who, Doma said, masterminded the crisis and killings of innocent students of the school three weeks ago.

He assured that the command was determined to ensure a crime-free Christmas celebration in the state this year and called for the continued cooperation of members of the public by exposing criminals in their midst.