AKWA IBOM KIDNAPPINGS: LET MRS EWANG NOT END UP LIKE MADAM UDONWA

His Excellency, the former governor of Ogun and Rivers State, retired Air Commodore Sam Ewang, has cried out that Akwa Ibom government is responsible for his wife’s kidnap. He expressed this in New Star newspaper of Wednesday 20/10/10. No denial has come from government’s side. Ewang narrated how he met with Governor Akpabio Wednesday 13/10/10 to solicit his support as chief security officer of the State to secure his wife’s release. He got Akpabio’s promise that in 48 hours, it would be accomplished but this never happened until Ewang’s family paid N25million ransom, yet Mrs. Comfort Ewang, and another who was captured during the ransom payment are still detained. A further N100million is being demanded. 

My fear is that Mrs. Comfort Ewang may end up like Lady Udonwa, the mother of the shot and banished governorship aspirant, a Singapore-based shipbuilder Engineer Udonwa. Akwa Ibom CP Walter Rugbere, gave impression (in the media) that the kidnappers demanded as a condition that Udonwa is pronounced dead thereby terminating his quest to contest the 2011 governorship election. When the family could not meet all the conditions, Police Commissioner Rugbere said, the kidnappers had to murder the old lady and dumped her body along a street.

From whatever angle you look at the kidnap sagas of late Lady Udonwa and Her Excellency Mrs. Comfort Ewang, you will see some similarities; one of such being that just as Engineer Udonwa was asked to announce his withdrawal from governorship contest, Ewang is also being asked to.

One would like to know what Her Excellency, Mrs. Unoma Ekaete Akpabio, is advising his husband on all this especially as it relates to the freedom of her contemporary (ex-First Lady Comfort Ewang); she should not keep quiet but ask her husband to ensure that Mrs. Ewang is released by her captors otherwise nemesis is there. It is Comfort Ewang today; tomorrow it could be Unoma Akpabio or even any of their kids. From what one reads in the media Police Commissioner Walter Rugbere, a due retiree should be sent out of the Police Force; he has committed enough atrocities to warrant this.

Stella Bolokor, 3 Randle Close, VGC, Lagos.