Pa E.K Clark to Kidnappers: ‘Please release my son’ – - - -
Mr. Ebikeme Clark
Vanguard
April 06, 2014
Three days after kidnappers seized his son, elder statesman, Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark, yesterday, made a passionate plea for his release.
Clark, however, said he was not angry about the kidnapping because it is part of the things people ought to live with.
The son, Ebikeme, was abducted by some gunmen while inspecting the site of his father’s proposed University of Technology in Kiagbodo, Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State on Wednesday.
Reports said the kidnappers were demanding N50 million ransom.
“I am not surprised that the kidnapping took place because when your children start to steal and they are out of tune, out of direction and nobody controls them, the next thing is that they will go and steal from their father or their uncle and so on,” the elder statesman, currently a delegate at the National Conference holding in Abuja, said.
He explained that the kidnappers should see him as their father and release his son.
Clark was worried about the plight of his daughter in law and grandchildren amid the kidnapping of Ebikeme.
The Ijaw leader spoke to Sunday Vanguard, yesterday, at his Asokoro, Abuja residence.
According to him, the kidnapping had been reported to the police and the Department of State Security (DSS) even as some suspects had been arrested in connection with the incident.
“Kidnapping is not new to me, but I didn’t know it was going to affect me personally. I have been involved in rescuing people who had been kidnapped since 2003 as a result of the freedom fighters agitation to draw the attention of the world and Nigerians (to the problems in Niger Delta). They have been involved in the kidnapping of expatriates working for oil companies and, in many of these cases, we intervened; we spoke to our boys and they respected us and most of these expatriates were freed,” Clark said.
He went on: “I remember a particular case when some Indians and Americans were kidnapped. Most of the victims were working for Wilbros, one of the oil servicing companies based in Port Harcourt. I remember the freedom fighters around Escravos spoke about how their villages were bombed from the air, attacked from the seas and they said they kidnapped some of the expatriates in order to provide them cover and that actually stopped the bombing of the area.
And I remember most of the expatriates were released to us, some, to me, in my house and so kidnapping of expatriates is not new to me.
“But after some time, kidnapping became a commercial venture whereby these boys, few of them, looking for money, decided to engage in kidnapping of human beings for monetary reasons. This also occurred in neighboring states like Abia, Imo and Anambra. They have this kidnapping in Rivers, Beyelsa, Delta and Akwa Ibom and sometimes in Edo and it was all for money.
“They were selfish young men, jobless young men who had nothing to do and they decided to kidnap human beings in order to make money.
“So I was not, therefore, surprised when some of these states like Edo and Bayelsa began to enact laws that made it a capital offence; I was not thinking that these boys, who know me as their father, will one day come to me. But I am not also surprised because when your children start to steal and they are out of tune, out of direction and nobody controls them, the next thing is that they will go and steal from their father or their uncle and so on.
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