Incidents Of Child Snatching, Armed Robbery escalate in Calabar

There have been increasing activities of armed robbery and child snatching in the once-

peaceful city of Calabar, the Cross River State Capital.

Two weeks ago, at Akai Effa, Calabar municipality, a male child of about 2 years was reportedly snatched from the mother by unidentified gunmen, believed to be ritualists. It was gathered that woman was returning from midweek church service in the evening, when the gunmen swooped on her with a pepper-spray and forcefully took away her baby. Until now, the whereabouts of the baby is still unknown.

Also recently at 8 miles, at the outskirts of Calabar, another child was said to have been snatched from the mother in a taxi. We gathered that four persons in the taxi who pretended to be passengers pushed the woman out of the vehicle and zoomed off with her baby.

On the 3^rd of October, gunmen also stormed Akwa Ikot Effanga community, Akpabuyo local government area and abducted three children of same parentage.

This is even as armed robbers have turned the city into a jungle of some sort as they now operate with impunity at different locations in Calabar.

Just last week Wednesday, armed robbers stormed the residence of a journalist at Howell Street, Calabar- South and carted away his laptop, phones and huge sums of money after he was thoroughly beaten.

The Journalist who writes for one of the national dailies told us that, “the robbers broke into my house at around 3 o’clock in the morning and after beating me up and collecting my laptop, phone and some amount of money they even attempted to take my car but because of the security apparatus in the car they couldn’t move it.

“Nobody should say that Calabar is peaceful. It is not peaceful in anyway. People should stop saying it is peaceful because there are lots of violent crimes going on at various locations in the state.

“Security agencies should rise up to the challenge by way of surveillance and constant patrol in various parts of the town”

Also a computer operator in the employ of the Nigerian Union of Journalist (NUJ) in the state, Mr. Itoro Gabriel was also attacked in his residence at New Airport, Calabar-South by armed robbers who took away his phones and some amount of money. He was severely beaten and inflicted with injuries.

At Otu Street, Ikot Ishie Community in Calabar municipality armed robbers also struck Tuesday last week and shot a resident of the area on the leg after dispossessing him of huge sums of money. They also conducted a house-to house raid in the area and made away with valuable properties unchallenged.

Some residents who spoke with us  decried the porous security situation in the city and blamed security agencies for not living up to its responsibilities.

One of them, Mr. Kingsley Obaji, who said he was attacked recently, wondered why there are no constant police patrols and surveillance in streets.

He said, “Since the assumption of duty of the new commissioner of police the rate of crime has increased and I begin to wonder why because unlike before you will see police patrolling streets day and night but recently it has stopped”

When we contacted the State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Hogan Bassey he confirmed the incidence, saying that a number of suspects have been arrested in connection with armed robbery and child snatching.

He said, “The police is on top of the situation and at the moment we have arrested a good number of them and they will be charged to court as soon as investigation was concluded”