Gunmen on Sunday kidnapped Kanene
Okonjo, 82, mother of the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister
for the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in Ogwashi-Uku, Delta State.
Okonjo-Iweala’s mother, wife of His
Majesty Chukwuka Aninshi Okonjo, the reigning Obi of Ogwashi-Uku kingdom
was kidnapped about 1:47p.m at the Obi’s palace at Ogbe-Ofu quarters in
Ogwashi-Uku by gunmen who stormed the palace in two cars.
The hoodlums struck two days after the
kidnappers of Arthur Okowa, the octogenarian father of the senator
representing Delta North Senatorial District, Ifeanyi Okowa, were
sentenced to 45 years in jail each by an Owa-Oyibo High Court in the
state.
However, the police have arrested a man who allegedly left the compound few minutes before the incident took place.
The man was said to have informed the housemaid that he was in the palace to take the queen mother to somewhere in the town.
The kidnappers, numbering about 10, were
lurking around the palace until the woman and her maid came down to
serve workers at the gate soft drinks.
Eyewitness account said as soon as the
woman came down from the main building, towards the gate, the criminals
also moved in from the gate to grab and push her into a waiting Golf
Volkswagen car.
“The abductors, when they walked into
the compound, were heavily armed. They were about ten. They bailed up
the men fixing the interlocking tiles and asked them to lay face down.
Immediately they saw her (the king’s wife who was coming towards the
gate with her maid to serve the workers soft drinks) they bundled her
into a waiting vehicle, a Golf car, while another car was parked
outside”.
One of them, bracing all odds, went
upstairs to collect the woman’s handbag. The eyewitness said another
maid who sighted the kidnapper upstairs hid herself in the kitchen.
On coming down from the upstairs, the
kidnapper informed his cohorts that there was no one else in the house,
so they zoomed off.
When contacted the state police public relations officer, Charles Muka, confirmed the incident.
source:businessday
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