Date Published: 04/26/09

[b]Anambra Bizmen panic as kidnappers place N200m ransom on seized oil tycoon

*no word on kidnapped NULGE chairman

Prominent businessmen in Anambra State are reportedly panicking over the kidnap of one of their colleagues and chairman of Tonimas Oil Limited, Chief Anthony Enukeme, even as some of them have begun relocating their businesses and families from the state.

Enukeme’s captors, family sources disclosed, have placed a ransom of N200m on the oil magnate who was reportedly seized in his country home in Neni, Anaocha Local Government Area of Anambra State, Saturday evening, shortly after he returned from his business base in Aba, Abia State.

But elsewhere in Ogbunike, Oyi Local Government Area of the state, gloom has heightened as family and friends of the state chairman of the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Comrade Goddy Ibekwe, intensify efforts to contact the labour leader who, like Enukeme, was kidnapped in his country home, Saturday evening.

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According to family sources, Enukeme, the traditional prime minister of Neni, had returned from his base in Aba to attend the funeral of a family friend. Shortly after returning from the ceremony, at about 6.30pm, some gun-wielding youngsters in a white jeep drove into his compound and seized the oil tycoon.

According to the sources, Enukeme, whose interests range from lube blending plants to tank farms in Onne, Rivers State, initially thought the youngsters were beneficiaries of his numerous scholarship schemes, or had come to solicit financial assistance.

“It was when they brought out their automatic weapons that we knew they meant business. Poor Onowu (Enukeme)! He never, like his colleagues, believed in having scores of mobile policemen. He had always argued that, if you protect yourself with mobile policemen, what about your wife, children or even aged parents?” offered a family source.

The source expressed regret that, several hours after they had narrated the incident to the State Police Commissioner, Mohammed Abbass, as well as the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Anaocha council, some policemen accosted in Neni claimed they were not aware of any kidnap.

“Immediately the boys left with Onowu, we contacted the CP (Commissioner of Police) and the DPO, giving details of the abductors and their vehicle. The officers promised to put all their men on red alert. That was before 7pm. You can therefore appreciate our chagrin when, about 11 pm, we met some mobile policemen at a check point in the same village of Neni, and when asked, they told us they were not aware of any incident of kidnap. They had even asked if we reported the matter to the police,” the family source recounted.

The source offered that the kidnappers called him about 1.30pm on Sunday, and allowed a brief chat with the kidnapped oil tycoon. “He managed to tell me that they (the kidnappers) were asking for N200 million before they snatched the phone from him and switched it off,” he said.

He lamented the rising wave of insecurity in Anambra State, saying the state government was only paying lip service to the security of life and property. “Anambra is fast becoming the creeks of the Niger Delta. Several friends of Onowu had actually told him they were keeping off their villages and home towns until they know what the state government is doing about the rising tide of kidnappings in Anambra. It used to be around the Nnewi axis, and we thought it was a game or a sort of rat race amongst the money bags there. With Onowu, a man is literarily as free as air, becoming their victim, Anambra is set to experience a fresh crisis as the businessmen have started relocating their families and businesses,” he lamented.

For Ibekwe, who is a civil servant, the motive for the kidnap as at press time remained unclear. “Comrade (Ibekwe) is not a politician, a businessman or a money bag. He is not involved in village politics. Who might want him kidnapped? What do they want from him? We have not heard from him and only pray they don’t harm him, because he has no money anywhere to use to pay any ransom,” lamented a family friend.

“Anambra is fast becoming Colombia. While the FARC hold sway in Colombia, Kidnappers have become lords in Anambra. Peter Obi keeps posturing about ANIDS or AIDS, about Vision this and Vision that, whilst the security situation dips. With Obi slumbering, the state drifts into anarchy, and he is busy talking of re-election instead of arresting the slide.

Over 30 businessmen and politicians have been kidnapped in the past year in Anambra State. Only recently, a member of the State House of Assembly representing Anaocha constituency, Joseph Dimobi parted with an unspecified amount to regain his freedom after spending days in his kidnappers’ den.

Two Chinese workers of Innoson industries, Nnewi were kidnapped last year. While one of the workers was released after millions were reportedly paid the kidnappers, nothing has been heard of the other Chinese engineer till date. [/b]

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