Groups Decry Alleged Plan to Kidnap UNICAL Principal Officers
Bassey Inyang
Several groups operating on the platform of the Academy and Combined Concerned Workers of the University of Calabar (UNICAL), have raised the alarm alleging that there are plans in some quarters to kidnap some principal officers of the institution.
The alarm was raised barely a year after some senior staff and students of the university were kidnapped and released only after a ransom in cash was paid to their captors.
The groups in a joint press conference in Calabar recently said from facts available to them, hoodlums have been threatening to kidnap some principal staff of the university or kidnap their children if they find it difficult to kidnap the officers.
The Coordinator of the Combined Concerned Staff of UNICAL, Johnson Inyang, said the groups would not take it lying low considering ugly incidents of last year when some senior staff and their children were kidnapped by hoodlums.
Inyang expressed surprise that such threats were coming again now that the university community is preparing for its 30th convocation ceremony.
He appealed to students and members of the numerous unions within the university to rise up the security challenge confronting them, adding that members of the university community should not allow themselves to fall victims of the merchants of mischief.
The coordinator, a senior staff in the Faculty of Arts, appealed to security agencies from within and outside the institution to be vigilant so as to save the university from further embarrassment.
Chairman of the academy, Dr. Sampson Uzuanke, said they got information that some hoodlums working with some strange forces outside the university have concluded plans to kidnap principal officers or their children.
Uzuanke, who double as the acting Head, Department of Modern Languages, disclosed that intelligence report at their disposal indicates that those behind the dastardly plot had gone ahead to recruit cultists and hoodlums to cause mayhem within the university community.
He said such threats can no longer be taken lightly as the group, in collaboration with other concerned workers of the university and security agency would do their best to ensure that those behind the plot are arrested and made to face the wrath of the law.
The Secretary of the academy, Dr. Ayuk Achu, said the intention of the plotters is to disrupt the pending 30th convocation ceremony, as well as portray the university in a bad light.
Achu said though the institution is reputed for its peaceful nature and academic excellence, students and majority of its staff would no longer sit back and watch any person or group of persons undermine the security on campus.