(Photo) Kidnapped, killed Uniport lecturer’s phone leads to suspects’ arrest

Two members of a notorious kidnapping gang terrorising Rivers State, Patrick Koyi and Chituru Ferdinand, have been arrested by operatives of the Inspector General of Police Special Intelligence Response Team, IRT, for kidnapping and killing a lecturer of the University of Port Harcourt, Emmanuel Chinasa Obi, in September 2016.


Vanguard learnt that the late UNIPORT lecturer was murdered by his kidnappers after a ransom of N1.1 million was paid in two instalments to the kidnappers. Sources disclosed that the kidnappers received a ransom of N700,000 from his relatives, while he was still alive and they were paid additional N400,000 after he was killed.

A source explained that relatives of the lecturer became apprehensive after paying the second instalment and the kidnapped lecturer was not released. They reportedly sent petitions to the IG, who drafted the IRT into the state. The source added that Koyi was arrested in Port Harcourt with a Techno mobile phone belonging to the lecturer and he confessed to the crime before leading the operatives to his home where Ferdinand, who he said was one of the masterminds, was also arrested. Confession Narrating how they kidnapped and killed the lecturer, Ferdinand said:


“It was my friend Akika from Akwa Ibom State that suggested that we should kidnap the lecturer, who is building a duplex in my home town in Rumuji. “When we talked about it, I told him that we needed a gun and he invited Omega, who also called Koyi. But on the day they kidnapped the lecturer, I was not around. “I went to Port Harcourt Town, but when I came back I learned that the man was dead. “I was given N50,000. Koyi told me that it was Omega that was always beating the man, while they were in the camp and after the man died, Omega and Akiki took his corpse for burial. “I do not know how the police came in, but it was Koyi that brought them before I was arrested.”


Vanguard also gathered that a 24-year-old member of a dreaded cult group operating in Rivers State, Sunday Ogbonda, was also arrested by IRT operatives deployed to the state by the Inspector General, Ibrahim Idris, to track down high profile criminals. Ogbonda was said to have been arrested for allegedly taking part in the January 9 murder of retired Deputy Superintendent of Police, Ikechi Dornata.

The retired police officer was said to have met his demise when a gang of cultist attacked him in his home town in Kono-Boun area of Khanna Local Government Area of Rivers State and shot him several times before driving a huge nail into his head. Though the operatives, who were led by ACP Abba Kyari, were yet to unravel the real motive behind the killing of the DSP, who was said to be the officer-in-charge of the Rivers State Police Command Armoury, a position he held for 10 years before his retirement.

It was learned that Ogbonda was arrested when a mobile phone belonging to the late DSP was traced to him and he was allegedly tricked to a hotel in Port Harcourt, where he was eventually arrested.