Former Governor of Abia State and 2007 Nigerian Presidential candidate, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu has condemned the kidnapping and continued capture of Senior Archbishop Ignatius Kattey, which occurred in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Archbishop Kattey, the head of the Anglican Church in the Niger Delta, was seized by armed gunmen on Friday and a statement has yet to be released on his whereabouts nor the name of the individuals or criminal organization claiming responsibility for the wrongdoing.
“We are all deeply concerned and deplore the ongoing confinement of Senior Archbishop Kattey. This is yet another precedent of our collective inability to curb gang warfare and prioritize the enforcement of justice in Nigeria, here at a fundamentally intricate level, a crisis that needs to be checked immediately,” Dr. Kalu stated.
“While we are grateful that the Senior Archbishop’s wife, Beatrice Kattey, has been released without harm, we are all troubled by the tragic state of Port Harcourt. Individuals and criminal organizations capitalize on the opportunity available to all of us in light of oil abundance, conducting targeted acts of violence in-part to curb international investment and interest in the region by promoting a sense of insecurity and terror amongst the expatriate and indigenous communities alike that reside in Rivers State.
And this instability applies to and affects us all. Just last year, the esteemed mother of Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was abducted and held for nearly a week, as but an example. We see before us a systemic pattern of institutional failure in Nigeria and in particular in the Delta region, with the criminal element operating with near-impunity at an endemic level.
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