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A seven-man gang, which claimed responsibility for the murder, said the death of the monarch was as a result of a failed kidnap attempt on him that fateful afternoon Sunday, January 31, 2011.
The traditional ruler was shot dead in his palace while two members of the gang arrested by the State Security Service (SSS), in connection with the murder, claimed they decided to kill the septuagenarian royal father when he resisted his kidnap.
“We killed him because he refused to follow us,” said Nsikak Emmanuel, a 32-year old ex-convict, who admitted trailing the royal father up to the point of disrupting one of the meetings he presided over, till the deceased paid the needed attention to him. “I went and told him that I was from the Mboho Mkparawa Ibibio; that we want to pay homage and endorse him as the Oku Ibom of Ibibio. He then gave me an appointment for that Sunday.”
After securing the appointment, Nsikak said he invited his gang members, who stormed the palace to kidnap the royal father, but he resisted their evil move, opting to die, instead. The suspect, paraded alongside his accomplice, Mathew, who he met in jail, said he had been involved in at least, one kidnapping, particularly, the one involving a woman from Etinan. He said he made N200,000 from the Etinan deal, but denied knowing where the victim was kept after she was kidnapped.
“I only showed them the woman and they kidnapped her. I don’t know where they kept her,” he said. He also denied taking part in the shooting which resulted in the monarch’s death, claiming he was waiting outside while the operation was going on inside the palace. “I felt bad when I heard that the man died. We didn’t want to kill but to kidnap him in order to make some money from him. It was Michael, Ukeme and two others who went inside. So, they will know who actually shot the man.”
But his accomplice, who claimed to have attended Akwa Ibom State College of Petroleum Technology, confessed that Nsikak was actually inside the palace when the monarch was shot dead. He said it was he who actually informed him of the deal, which made him rush down from Calabar, Cross River State, where he had been residing, transacting his palm oil business. “He (Nsikak) was the one who drove one of the cars that we used. It belonged to him. That was the first time I knew him.”
The State Director of State Security Service (SSS), Mr. Toma Minti, confronted him with the fact that two of them met in prison, where Nsikak spent about five years for attempted murder, while he (Matthew) was serving a two-year jail term for cultism. Matthew admitted that they became friends in prison saying; “I knew him in prison when I was sentenced to two years imprisonment for malicious damage. By then, I was a member of a mafia cult group. But now, I’m not doing that again.”
He said they were either sponsored by politicians or those who are opposed to the Ibom stool, which the deceased was to occupy after coronation before his murder. Minti alleged that, the gang was involved in more than 90 percent of all the kidnap cases in the state, including those of the husband of the Vice Chancellor of the University of Uyo, the Proprietor and Rector of Heritage College, Eket, among others.
“Since the paramount ruler was assassinated, we have not been sleeping. The seven-man gang had been terrorizing the state for a long time. Five of them are at large; but we are still trailing them.”
Minti lamented the lack of co-operation from members of the public in the fight against crime in the state, saying people only called him on phone to congratulate him, after Michael was arrested, whereas they knew him as a notorious criminal in their community, but failed to inform the security agencies.
“The reason most of the suspects have not been convicted is because sometimes, the victims refused to come out and identify them. Those who showed up earlier declined to appear in court later, after they received death threats from members of the gang. “People are no longer convicted because the judiciary appears handicapped. We have advised them to resort to accelerated hearing on such cases. We hope they would see reasons for that.”
The royal father was killed in his palace, after he returned from church – Living Faith Church, Uyo, where he was said to have presided over the burial preparations of one of the church’s pastors, David Idunoluwa, who was equally shot dead by suspected kidnappers.
The royal father’s assassination, first of its kind in the state, sparked off spiral reactions especially, as he had two days earlier, protested to the state police commissioner, over acts of disloyalty by some members of his traditional council, arising from the PDP senatorial primaries in Akwa Ibom North (Uyo) Senatorial district.
