Abducted APC Chieftain’s Whereabouts Still Unknown – Police

BY UBON EKANEM, CALABAR – More than twenty-four hours after some gunmen abducted an All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain in Cross River State, Mr Dominic Aqua Edem, the Police said the politician’s whereabouts is still unknown.

However, trusted sources within the State Police Command, who confirmed the story, assured that the Force has put all necessary measures in place to rescue him from the kidnappers’ den.

The politician, who is a lawyer and former two-term member of the Cross River State House of Assembly (CRHA) representing Bakassi State Constituency, was kidnapped on Thursday evening.

According to close family sources, Edem was picked up in his Ifiang village, Bakassi Local Government Area while inspecting crops on his massive farmland.

One of his aides confided in Forefront that his boss had gone on an inspection tour of the farm due to the heavy downpour of Tuesday, March 23, 2021 when the gunmen struck and ferried him away before help could come.

This incident is the second time the former lawmaker and a one-time Cross River State representative on the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) board, would be suffering in the hands of kidnappers, having been subjected to the inhuman experience on the eve of 2015 general elections.

Then contesting on the platform of Labour Party (LP) to represent Bakassi/Akpabuyo/Calabar South federal constituency in the House of Representatives, he was taken captive by hoodlums while on his campaign trail. The abductors only let him go after family members reportedly coughed out a whooping N10 million as ransom.

As at the time of filling this report. the family was yet to be contacted by the abductors, a development further confirmed by the State Police Command.

One of competent sources decried that cases of kidnappings and even killing of security personnel seem to continue unabated in the state despite efforts by the Special Security outfit, code named “Operation Akpaku” to stem insecurity, especially within the Calabar metropolis