Four days after the kidnap of Kenneth Udeze, National Chairman of the Action Alliance (AA), there are indications that his ordeal is not ordinary, but politically motivated and may not be unconnected with the party’s coming national convention.
Some party and family sources contacted by The NEXT EDITION, insisted that his kidnap at the front of a Zenith Bank branch in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, on Friday morning, was political.
Udeze, it would be recalled, was kidnapped on Friday morning in front of a Zenith Bank branch in the FCT, having been tricked to the bank by a false bank alert to the effect that some mysterious withdrawals had been made from his account.
A party source, who pleaded anonymity, said: “We don’t really want to officially comment on the matter due to the need to protect our chairman. But, if the truth must be told, it is a pure case of kidnapping by some unidentified police officers from Osun State, who might not have been on official assignment.
“From police investigation so far, they did not officially book for their arrival and departure at any police station in the FCT. Their plan was to come unofficially and carry out their evil agenda. We don’t think it was a DSS (Department of State Security) operation.”
The source stated that the Office of the FCT Commissioner of Police and Deputy Commissioner of Police Criminal Investigations Department (CID), FCT Command, indicated that if security operatives were involved, they were not from Abuja and could not have been on purely official assignment.
Also, a source close to the family disclosed that Udeze’s ordeal could be traced to the September 7 planned convention of Action Alliance (AA), scheduled for Osun State, even as it fingered a sitting senator and a governorship candidate in Imo State in the last election as been behind Udeze’s travails.
The source maintained that both the senator and governorship candidate had been using a party chieftain in Osun State as well as some lawmakers of the Imo State House of Assembly, who defected to AA and contested elections and won, to try to hijack the party by trying to remove Udeze by hook or crook.
It was also gathered that both Udeze and his wife, Genevieve, had been receiving threat calls, while their lines were hacked.
When contacted, Mrs Udeze said she would no longer speak on the issue, even as she prayed that her husband’s abductors should release him without further delay.
She, however, urged Nigerians to continue to pray for the safety of her husband and for him to breathe the air of freedom soonest.
It would be recalled that Action Alliance was formed by former Governor Rochas Okorocha, who soon after dumped it for other platforms as he thought he could not win elections under the party (AA). Since then, Okorocha had moved from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
He contested the Presidency under the PDP and APC and lost, even as won the governorship of Imo State under the APGA. He later dumped APGA and ran with the APC for his second term.
Since he dumped the Action Alliance, the party suffered leadership problems until the emergence of Udeze a few years ago to put the party in a winning trail, even as the party had candidates at various levels in the 2019 general elections and won several seats in the Imo House of Assembly.
Uche Nwosu, Okorocha’s son-inlaw contested the Imo State governorship election under AA, when he could not pick the ticket of the APC.
