Posted by By Bisi Olaniyi on
Unknown gunmen on Friday night kidnapped and killed the Bayelsa State‘s Permanent Secretary, Special Services Bureau, Governor's Office, Dr. Ekparipa Apiri.
Unknown gunmen on Friday night kidnapped and killed the Bayelsa State‘s Permanent Secretary, Special Services Bureau, Governor's Office, Dr. Ekparipa Apiri.
Until his death, he was attached to the Office of the newly-inaugurated Secretary to the State Government, Mr. Gideon Ekeuwei.
Apiri was reportedly killed at his Okodi hometown in the Ogbia Local Government Area of the state, where Vice President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, hails from.
The deceased attended the launch of motorcycles and operational vehicles of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, Bayelsa Command, in Yenagoa on Friday afternoon.
At the launch, which took place at the Armed Forces Remembrance Arcade, Opposite the Government House, the Bayelsa Governor, Chief Timipre Sylva, who was out of the country, was represented by the SSG.
Shortly after the event, the deceased proceeded to his hometown for the Christian wake of a late relation.
Some hours into the Okodi programme, Apiri was kidnapped by unknown, but reportedly armed persons, according to an impeccable source.
A search party was immediately raised with the adjourning villages combed, without a trace of the permanent secretary, only for his corpse to be discovered in the community on Saturday morning.
The corpse of the man many described as gentle, quiet and easy-going, who was married with children, has been deposited at the morgue of the Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa.
As at press time on Saturday, Ekeuwei, who left for Okodi, to commiserate with the deceased‘s family members and find out what actually happened, had not returned to the state capital.
The Police Public Relations Officer of the Bayelsa Command, Mr. Ibokette Iniobong, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, confirmed Apiri‘s death, but stated that the details were sketchy.
Iniobong said that no arrest had been made so far, but that the police were on top of the matter.
The PPRO urged Bayelsans with useful information about criminals in their midst to volunteer it to the police, saying that their identities would be protected.
It will be recalled that Augustina, the wife of the Bayelsa SSG, who was kidnapped on June 1, by unknown gunmen, regained her freedom on June 17, after spending 17 days in the militants‘ den.
The SSG‘s wife was kidnapped inside the Dosa Family Church in the Abuloma area of Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, during Sunday service, around 9 am and moved to the remote creeks of the Niger Delta.
The bloody face-off between the supporters of the leader of the Niger Delta Vigilante, Ateke Tom, and a militant leader in the Southern Ijaw LGA of Bayelsa, Prince Igodo, also led to the death of no fewer than 26 "boys" of Igodo.