Lecturers of the Federal College of Education (Technical), Omoku, Rivers State have sent a Save-Our-Soul call to President Goodluck Jonathan following the incessant kidnapping of their colleagues by hoodlums.

The lecturers, under the aegis of Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU), alleged that no fewer than seven lecturers of the college had been kidnapped in 2012 alone, while one of them, Dr. Richard Ihua-Maduenyi, died in captivity.

Chairman of COEASU in the college, Comrade Peter Chima Godfrey, who disclosed this at a press conference in Port Harcourt, yesterday, gave the names of lecturers of the institution who had been kidnapped and released after paying ransom as Engr. F.O.N Onyeukwu, Dr. Charles Agbaegbu, Lady B.M. Onuebunwa, Mr. Conqueror Nwokeocha, Mrs. Vivian Agburuja and Dr. R.F. Quadri.

Godfrey stated that Ihua-Maduenyi died as a result of torture in the hands of his abductors, even as he blamed the incessant cases of kidnapping on security lapses on the part of the Nigerian government.

He said: “It was pathetic that late Dr. Ihua-Maduenyi was gruesomely tortured to death, all as a result of security lapses on the part of the Nigerian government. Following the incessant kidnapping of our lecturers, it becomes obvious that lives and properties of the college community are at a very high security risk.”

The COEASU boss also alleged that 75 percent of the two campuses of the college was submerged by the recent flood, but expressed regret that no form of assistance or relief materials came to the college community from the Federal Government.

He therefore called on President Jonathan to come to the aid of the college community by providing security and relief materials in order to alleviate the suffering of the college community.

http://leadership.ng/nga/articles/38722/2012/10/30/kidnappings_rivers_lecturers_send_sos_jonathan.html