Two persons were abducted by gunmen in Calabar, Cross River State over the weekend, reports the News Agency of Nigeria.
NAN gathered that Dr. David Ugwu, an Associate Professor with the University of Calabar, was abducted at his home on Friday evening, while Morris Archibong, a Staff of Cross River Newspaper Corporation, was kidnapped on his way home on Saturday.
Prof. Ugwu was picked up by gunmen at his residence at Second Transformer in Atimbo while watering flowers in his compound after his abductors shot severally into the air to scare residents.
A witness, Iquo Etim, said the professor was watering flowers in his compound in the evening when the gunmen arrived shooting before taking him away.
Etim said: “They took him through the water.
“It is like they had been monitoring him for quite a while because they came in swiftly like they knew the area.”
Meanwhile, a colleague of Archibong in the Cross River State Newspaper Corporation said he was picked up on his way home from an outing in Etta Agbor Layout, Calabar Municipality on Saturday evening.
He said nothing had been heard from the abductors and the phone lines of the victims remained switched off.
When contacted, the spokesperson of the Cross River Police Command, DSP Irene Ugbo, confirmed the incidents, adding that the police was really working hard to ensure that they got the victims back to their families.
Ugbo said: “I am aware of the matter.
“We are working round the clock to make sure they are reunited with their families as soon as possible.
“We are doing everything possible to make that happen.”
University, newspaper staff abducted by gunmen in Cross River
