Gunmen invade Plateau polytechnic staff quarters, abduct 24-year-old lady

Wike warns monarchs against kidnapping, cultism in their communities
Gunmen yesterday invaded Mr. Ezekiel Rangs’ residence at the Staff Quarters of Plateau State Polytechnic, Barkin Ladi and abducted a 24-year-old lady, Miss Abigail, living with him.

The family members and neighbours said it was a replica of a tragic orchestration meted out to Kim Andrew Dido, a son to Rev. Andrew Dido who is pastoring the Polytechnic Chaplaincy some months back.

They urged well-wishers to pray along with the family for safe return home of the lady, who is said to be a secondary school graduate.

Meanwhile, the Plateau State Police Command Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Deputy Superintendent Mathias Terna Tyopev, has confirmed the kidnapping, saying that immediately they got the information, they mobilised to the scene but the abductors had disappeared.

He said the police were already on the trail of the perpetrators.

In another development, Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has warned that monarchs of communities in the state where cultism and kidnapping are rife now risk being deposed by the government.

Other punitive actions to be meted out to such communities, according to him, include denial of government infrastructural projects.

Wike gave the warning yesterday during a security meeting, which had in attendance service chiefs in the state, traditional rulers and Community Development Committee (CDC) heads, at the Government House, Port Harcourt.

The governor, who bemoaned the spate of insecurity in the state, said the government would no longer tolerate the action of those behind violence in the state.

Besides, he declared that all youth groups found to be involved in cultism would be dissolved by the state government.

He stated that both the government and people of Rivers State have decided to take their fate in their hands by collectively addressing the security challenges.

He also warned that any top government official caught in the process of trying to work for the release of arrested suspected cultist and kidnapper would face the full weight of the law.

However, Chairman of the Rivers State Council of Traditional Rulers and Amayanabo of Opobo, King Douglas Dandeson Jaja, decried the situation where security agencies divulge information passed to them by traditional rulers.