Police Avert Reprisal Cult War In ABSU

Abia State Police Command may have averted a bloody clash by rival cult groups in Abia State University, Uturu with the arrest of seven students suspected to be cultists.

The students were among 22 persons paraded for alleged various criminal offences, including kidnapping and armed robbery.

The paraded seven persons, alleged to be cult members and students from Abia State University, are Prince Opuene Argo, Chibuike Onyeka, John Kelechi Nwachukwu, Chukwunwike Uka, Ibe Evans, Orji Dike and Egwuacha Ugochukwu.

Abia State Police Commissioner, Mr. Edgar Nanakumo, said the alleged cultists confessed to being members of the Vikings cult group at ABSU.

According to him, the arrest of some of the suspected cultists in Aba led to the tracing of their hideout to an hotel in Okigwe, Imo State where one locally made revolver, a toy pistol and several rounds of ammunition were recovered.

The suspects said their leader, one Sammy, sent them to Abala village in Obingwa local government area to get the arms for a reprisal attack on a rival cult group on campus.

Nanakumo also said that a gang of suspected kidnappers was smashed on July 8, 2009 at their base in Alayi, Bende Local Government Area of Abia State as they were “planning another kidnapping.”

The gang, he said was identified to have been responsible for the February 26, 2009, kidnapping and disappearance of one Madam Oyidiya Udensi and her 14 year old grand daughter, Miss Joy Asiegbu.

But the leader of the gang, one Ndukwo Ugwu alias Caesar escaped with an AK 47 rifle while eight members of the gang were arrested by the anti-kidnap operatives who stormed the hideout, Nanakumo narrated.

He named those arrested to include, Ini Kalu, Nwachukwu Chijioke, Ebomi Kalu, Oji Origa, Onua Onu, Ejere Abraham, John Akwara, Uche Ugwu,Ifeanyi Osueke Chibuike and Chibuike Okonkwo.

The Police Commissioner also disclosed that fleeing members of a kidnap gang after their failed attempt to abduct one Professor Paul N. Nwabeke, were arrested.

The kidnappers, he said, were said to have struck at the residence of the lecturer at Amachara, an Umuahia suburb, and forced him into the booth of his Mercedes Benz Car but the hoodlums fled when their victim raised alarm that attracted the villagers.

However, their escape bid was foiled as the gang ran into a Joint Police/Army Patrol Team on stop-and-search duty at the Abia Tower along the Enugu-Aba-Port Harcourt Expressway where one of the suspects was shot dead, two were arrested while two escaped.

Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, fielding questions from journalists after making a presentation on The Global Economic Crisis; Implication for Africa, at the Commonwealth Parlimentary Association conference in Port Harcourt, yesterday. Photo: Chris Monyanaga.