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Unknown gunmen on Thursday assassinated a
lecturer in the Department of Accounting, University of Calabar, Dr.
Emmanuel Igbeng, by the entrance to his house in Calabar, Cross River
State.
The incident, which happened at about
8.30pm at Asuquo Abasi Street, off Uwanse Lane in the Calabar-South of
the metropolis, has thrown the university community into mourning.
This is coming barely one week after Igbeng was awarded his PhD degree at the 30th convocation ceremony of UNICAL.
An eyewitness, Magdalene Bassey, said
the incident happened within split seconds as three gunmen came out from
a waiting car while one of them shot the lecturer on his neck at close
range.
She said, “They did not ask him any
question, neither did they steal anything from his car. They just came
and shot him in the neck before retreating to their waiting vehicle.
They were three in number.”
Bassey said that Igbeng and a lady who
was in the car with him were rushed to a nearby clinic where the
lecturer was confirmed dead, but the lady was still alive.
Public Relations Officer of UNICAL, Mr.
Effiong Eyo, described the murder as a shocking development, adding that
it was sad losing a lecturer, let alone a young man.
“This is a great loss to us as an
institution. This man struggled and just last Saturday he got his PhD
degree. It is really sad for an institution to lose a man like that,” he
said.
Meanwhile the kidnappers of a lecturer
in the Department of Zoology, University of Calabar, Prof. Edet
Ekpenyong, have made N2bn demand as ransom on first contact with the
family.
Ekpenyong was kidnapped in the early hours of March 10, 2017 while on his morning routine jogging exercise on campus.
According to a source, the kidnappers
did not open contact with the family until after four days after when
they demanded for N2bn as ransom.
The source told Southern City News on Friday that further negotiations dropped the ransom to N1bn, N200m and N50m respectively.
“At least three persons have been
arrested in connection with the kidnap. We are making progress and we
hope that the professor will soon regain freedom. They initially
demanded N2bn but later dropped it to N1bn. Just on Thursday, a
negotiation was reached but in the early hours of Friday, I learnt that
the amount has dropped to N50m,” he said.
It was learnt that the university security agency is working with the police to ensure the safe release of the abducted don.
Speaking on the assassination of the
lecturer, the state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Hafiz Inuwa, said
investigations revealed that the gunmen hanged around the lecturer’s
gate before his return.
He said, “I am aware of the killing and
the police got there in good time. From the reports we got, the robbers
were hanging around and opened fire on him immediately he came. The
street, from what we discovered, was a lonely one. We have started
investigation into the matter.”
On the kidnapped university don, Inuwa simply said, “We are making headway.”