Police arrest INEC’s staff kidnap kingpin in Cross River, names tenant as mastermind
By Uket Oka (Calabar)
There was pandemonium in the early hours of Sunday at Daniel Ayongor street off Victory Way, Satellite Town, in Calabar Municipality Local Government Area, as police Operatives swooped in on a fleeing kidnapper behind the foiled abduction of Mrs. Caroline Bassey at the weekend.
Daylight Reporters gathered that during a covert operation led by SP Chukwuma Ogini of the of Anti Cultism and Kidnapping Squad,(ACKS), “Black” the brain behind Saturday’s Kidnap of the INEC staff was apprehended inside a ceiling.
Speaking with journalists on Sunday morning, the State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), SP Irene Ugbo, who confirmed Blacks arrest at Satallite Town said it was a milestone breakthrough especially as there has been pockets of Kidnapping incident in the metropolis.
SP Ugbo explained that the suspect went to take refuge at his girlfriend’s apartment at Satellite Town where he was arrested based on intelligence gathering.
“Unknown to him (Black), SP Ogini and his men were on his trail, and at about 05:10 a.m this morning they swooped in on him, at his girlfriend’s apartment where he jumped into the ceiling in a bid to evade arrest before he was apprehended by gallant operatives from ACKS.
“He confessed to being the brain behind Mrs. Caroline Bassey’s kidnap and mentioned her tenant’s (names withheld) as the person who contracted him and his gang to kidnap the former INEC staff,” she said.
SP Ugbo noted that the said suspect has also confessed how she planned her landlady’s abduction with a Kidnap Syndicate led by Black.
Mrs Bassey, a former staff of the Cross River State Newspaper Corporation, publishers of the Chronicle Group of Newspapers, retired from the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) a few months ago.
She was kidnapped from her resident at Peter Ojie Avenue in Calabar Municipality Local Government Area of the State ate on Saturday.
Eye witness said Mrs. Caroline Bassey was successfully kidnapped out of her residence at Peter Ojie street off Winners Way by kidnappers masquerading as people who want to rent chairs from her.
“The incident which happened at about 11.30am today Saturday 4th November 2023 was masterminded by kidnappers who came in a Toyota Camry car.
“They succeeded in tying one of her aides and putting him in the refrigerator before driving out of her premises with the victim in her own personal car.
“However, luck ran out of them, as alarm for help was raised and as the kidnappers were driving out of her premises, a dare brave Good Samaritan blocked them and in a bid to abandon their Camry vehicle, two of them jumped out of the vehicle to join their colleagues in the victim’s car as they were trying to reverse having noticed the blockage but one of them wasn’t successful as the dare brave Good Samaritan knocked him down with his Toyota Hilux vehicle, allowing neighbors and some youths to apprehend one of the kidnappers.
“The State Security Adviser South Commander Patrick Odiong and the DPO Federal Housing were immediately contacted and their swift reaction /coordination with other security outlets yielded fruits as the kidnappers were eventually intercepted along Akamkpa axis,” the eye witness who preferred anonymity explained.
