Mr. Ikechukwu Okeke, a United Kingdom-based professional, had been kidnapped by gunmen, Members of Amaokpala community in Orumba North Local Government Area of Anambra State held a press conference to announce this while expressing outrage over the spate of insecurity in the state.
Mr. Okeke, the elder brother to Dr. Chukwudi Okeke, chairman of Oxfordshire Cherwell District Council, returned to Nigeria on December 27, 2024, to attend his cousin’s funeral and visit his ailing parents before the unfortunate incident occurred.
“The tragic incident occurred on January 10, at about 7:30pm, as Mr. Okeke was returning home from the funeral of his cousin, Mrs. Obiageli Okoli. The community called on the state governor, Prof. Charles Soludo to take immediate and decisive action to address the security challenges threatening lives and property in the region.
Their son, Okeke was, however, released three days after, following payment of an undisclosed ransom to the kidnappers. Cases of Abduction killing and kidnap has been on the rise lately in Anambra state…Rev. Fr. Nonso, a Catholic priest, who was kidnapped on December 17, 2024 after his return from overseas for the Christmas holidays, and spent a week at his captors’ den in a forest, before his rescue upon the payment of N1m mobilization fee to the state police command by his colleague, Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Obimma, popularly known as “Father Ebube Muonso.”
Days after, another priest, Fr. Tobias Okonkwo, of the Catholic Diocese of Nnewi, was not so lucky. He was brutally murdered by gunmen, who abducted him in the Ihiala area of the state on December 26, 2024.
The story is similar in most parts of the state. Gunmen run rampage, abducting for ransom without let, even within Awka, the state capital, and sometimes killing victims in cold blood, while the government of Prof. Soludo appeared for the most part to be out of touch, even as his foot soldiers tended to play down the menace, spurring mass anger.
“Soludo MUST go,” said Noble Eyisi, a resident of the state, whose anger is a fair reflection of the feeling of many in the state; “… a culture of silence and palpable fear has befallen Anambra State. Insecurity, kidnappings and death, the levels of which we’ve never witnessed has become the daily lives of our people.”
“Once it’s 6:30 in Awka here, people will close shops and go home. I used to do jogging in the morning, but I no longer try it because it’s too risky. They can just put you in the car and that’s it, you have been kidnapped. And the painful thing is that the governor is doing nothing about it. We keep hearing about turning Anambra into Dubai and Taiwan, but people are not longer safe. It’s true that he’s building roads, but security is very important.
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