KIDNAP DRAMA
Female suspect accuses lawmaker of betrayal
• Says kidnap story is contrived to deny her her due
By MURPHY GANAGANA, Abuja
Saturday, September 22, 2007

Nkechi Enemuoh
Photo: Sun News Publishing
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A middle-aged woman accused of plotting the kidnap of a legislator in Anambra state says she is being persecuted for legitimately demanding her monetary reward for ensuring that her former political ally emerged winner, at all cost, in the last general elections.

Miss Nkechi Enemuoh and her lover, Onyeka Okoro, are presently in police custody for alleged criminal conspiracy, demanding with menace, and attempted kidnapping of a member of the Anambra state House of Assembly, Hon. Dimobi Joseph.

Ironically, Nkechi had served as campaign manager to Dimobi until the end of the April polls.
But the events that unfolded a few weeks after Dimobi clinched the ticket to represent his constituency, indicated that while all had seemed well between the political associates, it was indeed, a marriage of convenience, bound to hit the rocks in no distant time, having been contracted with financial reward as the major plank.

“The man, Dimobi, a PDP member representing Aniocha 11 constituency while I was his campaign co-ordinator. Prior to the election, we had an unwritten agreement that if I helped him to win the elections, he would give me the sum of N500,000”, Nkechi alleged while being quizzed at the police force headquarters in Abuja.

Exhibiting a measure of boldness and confidence, the lady said that she was amazed that rather than, fulfilling his own part of the bargain after actualizing his dream of becoming a lawmaker through her assistance, Dimobi has turned round to become her nemesis, using the police to inflict anguish,pain and sorrow on her.

She further claimed that her case was just one out of several others in which her erstwhile political associate reneged on his promises after the elections, a situation that pitched him against one kpotokpo, whom, she alleged, actually plotted to kidnap either the lawmaker or his parents to settle scores. “I laboured for him to win, and he did. In fact,during the election, there was a time some of his supporters had problem with the driver of a vehicle they had chattered.

He called me to release my vehicle to them and I did so. There were several other things I did to make him win. After the election, I went to him and demanded for my money,but he said I should wait till after they were sworn into office. After the swearing in, I went thim again, and he said he had no money”, Nkechi stated.

Narrating how she was picked up by the police, she revealed that the plot was hatched by another of Dimobi’s supporter whom she simply identified as Okpotokpo, but denied being involved even when she was contacted to be part of it.
Hear her: “There is this man they call Okpotokpo.He said Hon. Dimobi was owing him #5million.
Then, he told me that if Hon. doesn’t give him his money, he will kidnap him but said that I shouldn’t tell anybody andthat if I do, he will kill me. I said he couldn’t kidnap the Honorable member. because he goes around with security. He said that he will kidnap his family instead. Then, the Okpotokpo man said he was coming to meet me; that I should be at particular road junction, so that we can discuss. I was at that road junction on the day we were to meet alongside with my fiancée, when the police came and arrested us”.

However, acting Inspector General of police, Mike Okiro, dismissed Nkechi’s claims as a cock and bull tale, saying that the police acted based on a complaint by Hon. Dimobi to the effect that he received several threats on telephone from the suspects who demanded for the sum of #5million from him, or they would kidnap and kill his parents.

Okiro further said police investigations revealed that Nkechi and her lover, Onyeka Okoro, conspired with others, now at large, to kidnap Dimobi for a ransom of #5million, out of which she would have got a share of #600,000.