Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt
The whereabouts of Mrs Mabel Abiante, the 78-year old woman who was abducted by over 15 gunmen, on Saturday night, in her residence at Ngo, headquarters of Andoni local government area of Rivers State, is still unknown four days after.
A family source who confided in our correspondent in a telephone chat said “We have not been able to establish contact with her since the unfortunate incident. Our greatest concern is her health. She is very fragile and on routine medications. She is being denied of her routine drugs. We are very worried that we don’t know how she is being treated and the condition the kidnappers may have kept her without her medications. We’ve been managing her health.”
Mrs. Abiante, wife to the late Rev. Dagomie Abiante, a popular cleric, was kidnapped at about 8.50pm while watching television in her sitting room. She had closed from her shop at about 8.30pm.
Eyewitnesses narrated that the men, who shot sporadically, had positioned some of their members around the house while others moved into the sitting room where they whisked Mrs. Abiante away.
The criminals were challenged by one of Mrs. Abiante’s daughters who was at home when the kidnappers struck. But her efforts did nothing to stop the men who used the butts of their guns on her head and right hand, leaving her with swollen body.
The kidnappers were said to have escaped in a waiting speedboat through a side of the Ngo River close to the Abiante family house to an unknown destination.
Andoni local government is where the Tele Ikuru, the former Deputy Governor to Chibuike Amaechi and Uche Secondus, the Acting National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party hail from.
Ahmad Muhammad, the spokesman of the Rivers Police command confirmed the incident.