From Magnus Eze, Enugu
Workers of the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Enugu, have foiled an attempt to abduct the Medical Director of the institution, Dr. Monday Igwe.
Three stern-looking men had arrived the facility, Thursday afternoon in an unmarked Toyota Siena bus, and moved straight to the office of the medical director.
A hospital source said they wanted to drag Igwe out of his office before some agitated workers demanded to know their mission. They quickly raised the alarm, which attracted the attention of other staffers of the establishment. By this time, the hospital’s security personnel locked the entrance and exit gates, ensuring that nobody came in or went out of the premises.
Our reporter gathered that within the period, a call was placed to the New Haven Police Division and the Divisional Police Officer swiftly stormed the scene with his men.It was at this point that the suspected abductors disclosed that they were police officers from the Zone 13 Command, Ukpo in Anambra State. They claimed to have come to arrest the medical director based on a purported petition against him.
Their explanation did not go down well with the enraged workers, who queried the surreptitious manner they wanted to whisk their boss away.
As tempers rose, the DPO was said to have taken the men to the Area Commander who reportedly tongue-lashed them for not acting according to police’s operational rules.
The matter eventually got to the Commissioner of Police, where the men were clearly cautioned over their operational method and tactics.
A leader of one of the unions in the hospital told us that an official of the institution was allegedly behind the petition.
The unionist who wondered why the staff in question had embroiled in one crisis or another in the hospital in the last 13 years said that he reportedly engaged the services of non-existent civil society organisations to destabilise the hospital.