Daily Sun investigation revealed that Rev. Phillip, a former superintendent of the Assembly of God Church, Eket District, was abducted along Ibo Street, Oron, at about 8.30 pm on Sunday.
It was further gathered that the pastor, who was in company with his wife and a child, had left Stadium Street and was going to visit one of his in-laws, when the hoodlums roughly overtook his vehicle and commandeered him to stop.
“Jumping out of their unidentified car, and brandishing guns, they ordered the pastor and his wife to come down from their car. The wife miraculously escaped being hurt while the gunmen sped away with the pastor,” an eyewitness narrated.
The Police Public Relations Officer, Cordellia Nwawe who confirmed the incident to Daily Sun, however, declined further comments.
“But I can tell you that we are in charge; we will do what we can. We will find the man. But we won’t be able to tell you the machinery we have put in place,” she said.
Nwawe said the crime wave in the state was almost zero during the Yuletide celebration as the police maintained constant visibility and accessibility in the streets; a development she said helped to deter criminality.
“People knew that we were in charge of the situation. We were very proactive. The police commissioner was in-charge. There was no holiday for the police. We were very busy everywhere,” Nwawe said.
The kidnap of Rev. Phillip brings to two the number of such incidents in the last three weeks. Early this month, Mr. Uwem Umana, an elder brother to the state commissioner for information, Mr. Aniekan Umana, was kidnapped and the hoodlums placed a ransom of N100 million on his head.
It could not be ascertained how much the family eventually paid to secure his release, even as it was learned the kidnappers had later reduced the ransom to about N30 million.
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