ARMED youths in the Niger Delta stepped up their controversial acts yesterday by attempting to abduct the Secretary to the Ondo State Government (SSG), Isaac Duerimini Kekemeke.
Providentially, however, he resisted the abduction and secured freedom. Last night, Kekemeke told reporters that he escaped the abduction by a hair’s breadth last night.
The armed youths suspected to be members of a faction of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) had stormed a ward congress of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at Arogbo, yesterday, disarmed Kekemeke’s armed police aides and attempted to take him away.
The failed abduction came barely two months after 11 chieftains of the PDP in the state were also kidnapped by restive youths.
Before the spate of kidnappings, the leadership of MEND in Ondo State had accused the state government of reneging on its pledge to pay N500 million to them for allegedly providing cover for the PDP to rig the April 14 governorship elections in the state. The government denounced the claim that it neither entered into any agreement with the rascals nor rigged the elections.
Kekemeke, who hails from Agadagba-Obon in the Ijaw-speaking river-rine Ese-Odo Council, was to be taken to a hide-out but for his fierce struggle.
Sources within the security circles in the state, who confirmed the incident to The Guardian yesterday, disclosed that about five armed mobile policemen who were on the entourage of the SSG to Arogbo, where the abduction took place, were disarmed by the youths.
Also confirming the incident, the state Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Eddy Olafeso, said that traditional rulers and leaders of thought in the area had been contacted to help pacify the youths.
Olafeso said that the government would not be forced to negotiate with criminals.
Kekemeke has been in the centre of the alleged pre-election pact between the PDP and the militants who claimed that he and a few other leaders were instrumental to the rigging arrangements and the N500 million compensation.
But when the PDP chiefs were kidnapped two months ago, he described the militants as criminals who could not be members of MEND, saying “these youths are nothing but criminals and armed robbers who also engaged in illegal oil bunkering.”
He had added: “They are people looking for attention. They are people who should be arrested and resisted. They should be made to face the wrath of the law for committing crime. Those PDP members they kidnapped are Ijaw people. If you say you are fighting for Ijaw why kidnap them? Why spoil their environment with black oil?”
On the claim that they were responsible for the re-election of Governor Olusegun Agagu and that they deserved to be paid for their efforts, Kekemeke said that the people were operating from only two wards out of the 203 in the state and queried how such a insignificant number could determine the emergence of the governor.
“Instead of giving these criminally-minded miscreants N500 million, the money would be used for the development of the region, which had been neglected by successive administrations in the past,” he had declared.
He told journalists last night in his house that the kidnap attempt failed due to Divine intervention.