4th May, 2015
Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt
After spending about two weeks in the kidnappers’ den, Chief Cassidy Ikegbidi,the Caretaker Committee Chairman of Ahoada East local Government council of Rivers State who was abducted by gunmen in military uniforms on Saturday April 18, was today set free but hospitalized .
Ikegbidi’s release today was confirmed by Mr Blessing Oyaghiri,the Chief Press Secretary to Ahoada East Local Government. He said his boss was released today without ransom.
Oyaghiri explained that his boss had gone through trauma and needed medical attention.
Ikegbidi who was kidnapped on the eve of the rerun House of Assembly election on April 18 is an ardent loyalist of Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers state and a leading light of All Progressives Congress, APC,in the. state.
He was once an elected council chairman of Ahoada East local Government council. But when his tenure expired, he was, along with a few selected Council Chairmen, appointed as Caretaker Committee Chairman of the same council.
Cassidy Ikegbidi,a High Chief in Ekpeyeland, was leader and vocal Spokesman for APC members who protested to the INEC headquarters in Abuja to call for the transfer of Mrs Gesila Khan, the Rivers INEC Resident Electoral Commission, REC,who was accused of being a compromised umpire and tool in the hands of the opposing parties to rig out APC.
A female Physiotherapist with the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, UPTH, Mrs Uju Onata has also been released by her abductors with gunshot wounds and currently on admission in hospital.