Release Nwosu’s Wife, Agbaje Tells Kidnappers

Release Nwosu’s Wife, Agbaje Tells Kidnappers

Wednesday, September 16, 2015 3:06 pm


Toyin and her husband Steve Nwosu

Toyin and her husband Steve Nwosu

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate for Lagos State, Mr. Jimi Agbaje, has called on captors to immediately release Mrs. Toyin Nwosu, wife of the Deputy Managong Director of the Sun Newspapers.

Mrs. Nwosu was picked up from her Ago Okota, Lagos resident, on Monday, and her abductors have posted a ransom of N100 million. Police authorities have described them as robbers.

While urging the police to leave no stone unturned in the search for the abducted lady, Agbaje prayed for a swift and happy ending to the travail of Mrs. Nwosu and her family.

Agbaje, in a press statement by his Director of Media and Publicity, Felix Oboagwina, urged Mrs. Nwosu’s abductors to grant her immediately liberty. According to him, her kidnapping was an error, and an exercise in futility and ingratitude.

Jimi-Agbaje

Jimi-Agbaje

Agbaje decried the spate of kidnappings visited in recent times on members of the Press and their families, saying it came from the erroneous belief by misinformed criminals that the visibility of journalists translated to prosperity for pen-pushers.

“In the society, journalism is a powerful profession, and practitioners are rendering a significant service of information management. But to suppose that this transmits the average journalists into a wealthy person comes from a warped imagination,” he said. “And then to submit them and their families to this nightmare of kidnapping for ransom is most uncharitable to a group of professionals who toil day and night to make the society a better place.”

He further frowned at the kidnapping of journalists and their families, describing it as a terrorist act, designed to infringe on the Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Information. “Kidnapping must not be a brand new hazard of the job for journalists and their families,” he said.

Agbaje, who recalled that a Columnist with Vanguard, Mrs. Donu Kogbara, was released at the weekend after being kidnapped for two weeks in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, described the trend as worrisome. “Journalists and the Press have been in the forefront of the quest for a just, equitable and developed society, and to repay them this way is, to say the least, most uncharitable,” he said.

He called on the government to make kidnapping less attractive through providing employment for youths and applying the necessary sanctions on apprehended criminals and their collaborators.

However, Agbaje urged the Press to refuse to be intimidated, saying, the unhealthy trend would soon dissipate when perpetrators realised they were not dealing with rich moneybags.


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