A brave mother, Mrs Priscilla Ekpenyong, on Friday damned the
consequences by clinging to a moving vehicle in order to rescue her
nine-month-old child, Emmanuella, from the hands of fleeing abductors.
The abductors had pushed the 23-year-old woman out of the moving
vehicle, but she held on to her daughter and was dragged on the tarred road for
some distance before the kidnapping was aborted by security operatives.
The incident happened by the Eburutu Army Barracks along the busy
Murtala Mohammed Highway in Calabar, the Cross River State capital.
Narrating her ordeal at the Police Clinic in Calabar, where she and her
daughter received medical attention from bruises sustained during the incident,
Priscilla said she boarded the taxi, a Volkswagen Jetta, at the Pyramid Hotel
Bus Stop along the highway with another unidentified woman who was carrying a
male child.
She said shortly afterwards, the taxi stopped to pick two men, who on
entering the vehicle demanded the babies in the vehicle.
Priscilla said, “I entered a taxi at Pyramid Hotel Bus Stop on a journey
to my village, Idoma, in the Biase Local Government Area. Another lady was also
in the vehicle with her son, but when we got to the Army Barracks junction, two
men joined us.We thought they were passengers, but as soon as they got in, they
started dragging our babies with us.
“I was sitting in the front with the driver, while the other woman was
sitting at the back with her baby too. The two men sat at the back and while
one of them was dragging the other woman’s baby (a boy), the other man was also
dragging my daughter.
“The luck I had was that I strapped my baby in a tummy-carrier and the
man struggled to remove the baby inside the carrier. He succeeded in removing
my baby’s hand from the carrier and she started crying. He almost pulled my
baby’s hand off, so I shouted for help.
“He then pushed me out of the vehicle, but I held on to my baby. The
vehicle dragged me on the road from the Army Barracks junction to Sampet
Filling Station, a distance of about 500 metres, before some security agents
intervened. They caught the man who was trying to snatch my baby and took him
to the Federal Housing Police Station. I don’t know where the others went.”
The state Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Hogan Bassey, said the
taxi driver and other accomplices escaped, while a suspect, Victor Edem-Bassey,
was arrested and was being detained at the headquarters of the Cross River
State Police Command in Calabar.
Edem-Bassey told PUNCH Metro that the harsh economic realities
forced him into stealing children.
Edem-Bassey (30) from the Akpabuyo Local Government Area of the state,
said he was introduced to the business by a friend, named Essien.
It was gathered that Edem-Bassey and his fleeing accomplices pretended
to be passengers while another co-conspirator posed as a commercial driver.
Edem-Bassey said they were to take the stolen children to one Albertino
who was introduced to him by Essien around the Eight-Miles area of the the
Calabar metropolis.
The suspect, who claimed he had a 13-year-old son, said he was a taxi
driver, but lost his job after he fell sick.
He said, “I fell sick and the owner of the car I was driving collected
it from me. After he collected it, there was no money to survive. Essien came
to me and told me about this business. He said he would take me to his boss who
would help me.
“He then introduced me to a man called Albertino, who said he would
solve all my problems if I bring babies to him. He did not say he would pay me
anything but he promised to solve all my problems. I met him in a joint at
Eight Miles, but I don’t know where he lives. He was driving a jeep. I met him
at the Old Market Road. He told me to bring the babies to him.”
It was gathered that the police had arrested Essien, and was being
detained at the command headquarters.
The PPRO said the arrest would aid the police in unravelling the mystery
of child stealing in the state, adding that it was obvious that the suspects
were kingpins.
Calabar had in recent weeks been under the menace of kid abductors. The
children that had been snatched had yet to be found.