Insecurity, On Escalation In Abia State, Especially In Umuahia:
Sunday (Orie) 07-09-2025.
Abia State has gradually but systematically been overtaken by kidnapping and all manner of criminality. The security of Abia residents and visitors is no longer guaranteed. The situation is painfully and bitterly agonizing.
An online News Medium, Equity Global Reporters Ltd, learnt that for some time running, the Abia State University Community, Uturu, has become a no-go area because of insecurity that has, rather than abate, been ferociously menacing, subjecting the lives and security of both students and natives to an unprecedented level of vulnerability. Except students and parents who have no alternatives, Abia State University, Uturu, is no longer a good academic destination as it is entirely bereft of security and, therefore, safety.
The online News Medium also gathered that in Umuahia, kidnappers roam unchallenged in small shuttle buses known as Keke Buses, and tricycles known as Keke Napep. Residents of Umuahia are being kidnapped on daily basis, without any publicity given to it.
Of course, the security situation in Umuahia is made worse by the unconstitutional abandonment of Umuahia as the constitutionally-stipulated Capital of Abia State by the Governor of the State who, for every reason unacceptable, abandoned Umuahia as State Capital for a rural community in Isialangwa-South. The influence a State Capital should radiate, including the attendant security architecture, is completely non-existent. Umuahia, in terms of security, is unfortunately immeasurably porous. This is why from 7 pm to dawn, no social life is noticeable in Umuahia. The Town becomes a ghost town.
On Friday (Nkwo) 5th September, 2025, and about 4 pm, Equity Global Reporters Ltd learnt a Law Student of Abia State University, at Umudike Campus, near Umuahia, flagged down a keke bus on his way to Umuahia Town.
There and then, his trauma started. He had, unknown to him, boarded a vehicle of kidnappers. According to him, there were four young men in the bus, and they quickly seized his IPhone.
He said the kidnappers, who drove into somewhere around Umuahia to allow darkness to fall, later drove for a reasonably long time before he was taken to an uncompleted building where they tied both his legs and hands with ropes.
For the two nights that the ABSU student slept in the uncompleted building, as he later narrated to Equity Global Reporters Ltd, the kidnappers only allowed him to sleep in his boxers, not minding the severity of the cold.
The Student, in furtherance, stated that the kidnappers started calling his father, using his phone. They demanded Ten Million Naira but his father told them he had never seen such huge amount of money in his life.
While the student was still in the den of the kidnappers, his maternal uncle who is an ICT expert had to contact some of his friends in some Network Providers to track his phone. The result of that effort indicated, as narrated to Equity Global Reporters Ltd, that the kidnappers were using a Mast that was around Isiokwu Street of Onitsha-North, in Anambra State.
The kidnappers were, reportedly, so daring that they even gave two bank accounts through which ransoms were paid to them.
To glory of God Almighty, the student, as earlier had been established through tracking, was driven for more than one hour in the early hours of today, Sunday (Orie) 7th September, 2025 from where the kidnappers held him hostage in an unknown place to Fire Service, also known as Control, at Owerri, from where he was able to call his father, using the phone of a commercial bus driver that eventually took him to Umuahia en route to Aba, who transferred some money to the driver. The ABSU student has since arrived safely to Aba, though badly traumatized.
Many questions arise from the student’s kidnap. The first is, should Abia State become so porous and fertile that kidnappers could be coming from faraway Onitsha in Anambra State to kidnap people in the State?
Why should someone kidnapped in Umuahia be driven on a long distance journey to Onitsha without being intercepted at any of the numerous security checkpoints that liter the roads in the South-East?
If they could stay for sometime in Umuahia for darkness to fall, does that not imply they have accomplices in Umuahia?
Equity Global Reporters Ltd also got informed that many residents of Aba are also subjected to constant kidnapping, especially in the evenings by criminals who operate in Keke Napep.
The Government of Abia State should realize that security and welfare of citizens are the primary objective of any Government that means well for its citizens. Paying mere lip service to security in Abia State, in the midst of tens of Billions of Naira that the Government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu releases every month to the State Government, will be the worst disaster that can befall Abia State.
Equity Global Reporters Ltd would wish to urge the State Government to make security its topmost priority.
Publisher,
Equity Global Reporters Ltd.
