Principal suspect in Akwa Ibom murder case paraded

• Claims he killed victim in self defence

By Okon Bassey

The Akwa Ibom State Police Command yesterday paraded Uduak Frank Akpan, the principal suspect in the raping and killing of an Akwa Ibom job seeker, Iniubong Umoren, with the state governor, Mr. Udom Emmanuel promising to ensure all the perpetrators of the heinous crime are punished.

The suspect was paraded to dispel rumours he committed suicide in police custody.

Akpan, who was paraded alongside his father, said he killed Ini Umoren in self defence and not intentionally.

Iniubong’s ordeal started when she posted on Twitter that she needed a job and Frank Akpan invited her to come for an interview.

However, she informed her best friend about the invitation to the interview and it was the same friend that raised the alarm when she received an audio message from Ini screaming. Subsequent effort to reach Ini proved abortive as her number was no longer reachable.

Narrating the incident while being paraded, Frank Akpan said: “I asked her whether she could work in a farm where hard drugs are kept, as a secretary… she said she could.

“I asked her that I would like to have sex with her before she left. She agreed and gave a condition that I would have to use condom, which I did.

“While I removed the condom, she became furious and removed the nearby stabilizer to hit me on the head.”

According to him, in the ensued struggle, he moved to defend himself from her attack. He said he hit her with a pressing iron. He continued: “While I was bleeding, in order to stop her, I used the stabiliser to hit her. When I hit her, she fell.”

Akpan admitted that Ini was not his first victim. He said he had treated five other ladies in the same way but Ini was the only one who died.

Akpan told newsmen that his father was not around and never assisted him in any way to either kill or bury the remains of the deceased.

His father, Frank Akpan, a retired director in the federal ministry of lands, denied knowledge of the crime until he was invited by the police, even as he admitted that the house in which the murder was effected was his own.

On the fact that his son admitted to taking advantage of six girls in the compound, the father said; “I’m not aware of that. The reason is that we just relocated from Abuja. I have not been around for 30 years.

We have been living outside. We just relocated because I have been retired. It is not even up to two years since we came back.”

He denied ever being in the business of selling human parts as alleged.

Asked to comment on the kind of justice he expects in the case, Mr. Akpan stuttered and said “I’m not happy about what my child had done. I don’t even believe this can happen to me after I had sent them to school, tried to bring them up. Yea, justice can be done if the system so permits.”

Meanwhile, the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Mr. Udom Emmanuel has assured the world that he would leave no stone unturned in unraveling all those behind the murder of the Job-seeker in the State.

The Governor expressed confidence in the security agencies to get to the root of the killing of the young graduate, challenging female security officers, including the Deputy Commissioner of Police in the state to ensure that justice is served.

Addressing the people of the state on the eighth series of “the Governor Speaks”, radio and television programme yesterday the Governor expressed condolences to the bereaved family, and assured that the state is doing everything humanly possible to ensure the investigation is not compromised.

Meanwhile, tears flowed freely as the remains of the 26-year-old miss Iniubong Umoren were committed to mother earth in her hometown, Nung Ita Ikot Essien, Oruk Anam local government area of Akwa Ibom State on Friday.

Late Umoren, a graduate of Philosophy, University of Uyo (UNIUYO) was allegedly lured, raped, murdered and buried in a shallow grave by a 20-year-old serial rapist and killer identified as Uduak Frank Akpan in Nung Ikono Obio village in Uruan local government area of the State.