UNICAL Principal Officers Allege Fresh Kidnap Threat 

By Bassey Inyang in Calabar

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 were plans in some quarters to kidnap some principal officers of the institution.

They raised the alarm barely year after some senior staff and students of the university were kidnapped, and released only after some ransom in cash   paid to their captors.

The groups who addressed a joint press conference in Calabar on yesterday said from facts available to them, hoodlums had been threatening to kidnap some principal staff of the university, their children or wards, if they find it difficult to kidnap the officers.

Coordinator of the Combined Concerned Staff of UNICAL, Comrade Johnson Inyang, while speaking on the issue said they 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 at this crucial period that the university community was preparing for its 30th convocation ceremony.

The coordinator, therefore, appealed to students and members of the numerous unions within the university community to rise up the security challenge confronting them. He said members of the university community should not allow themselves to fall victims of the merchants of mischief.

Inyang, a senior staff in the faculty of arts, appealed to security agencies from within and outside the school to be vigilante 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 from outside the university, have concluded plans to kidnap top principal officers or their children or wards.

Uzuanke, who doubles as the Acting Head of Department of Modern Languages, disclosed that intelligence report at their disposal indicated 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 could no longer be taken lightly as the group, in collaboration with other concerned workers of the university and security agency would go the whole hog to ensure that those behind the plot were arrested and made to face the wrath of the law.

Secretary of The Academy, Dr. Ayuk Achu, said the intention of the plotters was to disrupt the pending 30th Convocation Ceremony, as well as portray the university in bad light.

Achu said that though the university was reputed for its peaceful nature and academic excellence, he, however, warned that students and majority of its staff would not fold their hands anymore and watch any person or group of persons undermine the security on campus.