Prof. Kamene Okonjo
The kidnap of Professor Kamene Okonjo, the 82-year old mother of
Nigeria's finance minister Ngozi okonjo-Iweala was executed by a group
of daredevil kidnappers who disguised as palace guards while her husband
was traveling in Abuja.
A man in police custody who allegedly led the kidnappers to Mrs.
Okonjo's compound a few minutes before the incident took place was said
to have informed the housemaid that he was in the palace to take the
queen mother to somewhere in the town for a traditional event.
Other kidnappers numbering 10 were lurking around the palace until
Mrs. Okonjo and her maid came down to offer refreshments to some men
working to fix the palace gate.
Eyewitness accounts said that as soon as the woman stepped out of
the main building, heading towards the gate, the kidnappers moved in
from the gate, and pushed her into a waiting Volkswagen Golf car.
In a telephone chat, one of the palace chiefs, who requested
anonymity, told our reporter that the abductors were armed to teeth, and
that had taken hostage the workers at the gate who were fixing
interlocking tiles in the palace, ordering them to lie face down.
“Immediately they saw our king’s wife, the Queen Mother who was
coming towards the gate with her maid to serve the workers soft drinks,
she was seized and thrown into a waiting Golf car while another car was
parked outside”.
Another eyewitness further said: “One of kidnappers, bracing all
odds, went upstairs to collect the Queen Mother’s handbag. Another maid
who sighted the kidnapper upstairs hid herself in the kitchen.”
Professor Okonjo is a retired profesor of sociology at the University of Nigeria (UNN) Nsukka.
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