An Akwa Ibom State High Court sitting in Uyo has sentenced a serving police corporal and a bus conductor to death by hanging for their involvement in the 2015 abduction of a school administrator in Ukanafun Local Government Area.
The trial judge, Justice Nsemeke Daniel, convicted Police Corporal Mbazigwe Chinedu Friday and Isaac Eddy Ndeesor on charges bordering on conspiracy, kidnapping and unlawful possession of firearms.
He described the nearly 10-year trial as protracted and regrettable.
The victim, Elder Akara Johnson Mendie, who served as Vice Principal of Community Secondary School, Nkek, was kidnapped on July 5, 2015, at about 3.30pm while returning from church with his wife.
The court heard that four armed men, travelling in a Toyota Camry, intercepted their vehicle along the Urua Akpan Udosen/Ikot Unah Road, forcibly took Mendie away and made off with his wife’s handbag containing personal effects, including legal documents.
During the trial, evidence showed that the abductors initially demanded N25m as ransom but later settled for N200,000.
The money was reportedly delivered through the victim’s sister, after which he was freed in Bori, Rivers State, on July 10, 2015.
Corporal Friday, 41, who was at the time attached to MOPOL 57 in Ukana, admitted during investigation that he coordinated the operation.
He, however, claimed he acted on the instruction of an unnamed “honourable,” insisting that the firearm used was not an official police weapon and that his accomplices were civilians.
Ndeesor, 28, was said to have assisted security operatives in tracing and apprehending the police officer. Investigators recovered a locally fabricated revolver, ammunition, closed-circuit television devices, several mobile phones and other items from Friday’s residence.
In his judgment, Justice Daniel rejected the defence that the officer was set up, holding that his account was riddled with contradictions.
The judge questioned how a sworn law enforcement officer could mastermind the abduction of a defenceless man returning from worship with his family.
Having found the two men guilty on all counts, the court sentenced them to death by hanging, declaring that they be executed in accordance with the law.