Lawmaker Decries Govt’s Laxity to Rescue Aid Workers from Abductors
A lawmaker, representing ManguBokkos Federal Constituency, Hon. Solomon Maren, has lamented fresh abduction of another aid worker of Plateau State origin, Miss Jennifer Ukambong, by Boko Haram in Borno State, describing it as a brutal shock.
Maren, in a statement, said: “The recent abductions, among many instances of insecurity in our nation show the extent to which the terrorists have grown, all owing to the laxity of government and other concerned parties to do the needful.”
Ukambong was reportedly abducted alongside another aid worker simply identified as Asabe, while four other travellers were killed along Monguno-Maiduguri Road in Borno State by Boko Haram in an ambush.
Maren said: “I’m pained that for the third time in three months, four of my innocent constituents have been abducted by Boko Haram in Borno State.
“These are harmless citizens who by reason of their professional callings have found themselves working in the troubled north-east region, providing humanitarian help to victims of insurgency.
“Mr. Lawrence Duna Dacighir and Godfrey Ali Shikagham, both carpenters from Mangu Local Government Area, working with an international non-governmental organisation were publicly executed in a widely circulated video in October 2019.
“The entire Mangu-Bokkos constituency is yet to recover from the experience. Now we hear of the abduction of Miss Jennifer Ukambong, a medical aid worker with Alliance for International Medical Action.
“Ukambong, an orphaned indigene of Bokkos Local Government Area, was kidnapped along with several others in a brutal ambush along Monguno-Maiduguri road on Sunday, December 22, 2019, the day she was marking the 21st remembrance of her dear father’s demise.
“This came as a brutal shock to us, and as a representative of the peaceful people of this constituency, my heart bleeds. This is particularly so as reports say another indigene of Bokkos was three weeks ago kidnapped by the same insurgents in the northeast, yet nothing has been done by the authorities concerned.”