By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
Iniobong Umoren, the 26-year-old job seeker murdered on April 29 on Oron Road, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State could have remained alive if the police had acted on the alarm a cybersecurity expert sounded four years ago.
Ebongabasi Ekpe-Juda told TheNiche that in 2017 he met with the then state Commissioner of Police, Donald Awunah, and alerted him over a fraud syndicate on Oron Road, also known as Airport Road, posing as recruitment agents.
The warning was prompted by a text message laden with grammatical errors Ekpe-Juda received on March 28, 2017 inviting him for a job interview on Oron Road.
The text message reads: “You are recommended for an Interview wit ur 2passports Tomorow @#439 Oron Rd by QuentHall Pharmacy 1st Floor.Youth Avenue,Mbiabong by 8am.Ref No:MDCEO/URJ/9/948.”
The sender’s phone number was +234 708 817 2466
Ekpe-Juda said he found it strange that he, an occasional employer of labour, would be invited for an interview for a job he did not apply for.
He used his connection with his friend, John Babatunde Kokumo, then Edo State commissioner of police, to arrange a meeting with Awunah.
Ekpe-Judah recounted that after Awunah listened to his suggestion that the police send a team to arrest the fraudsters, the CP told him that it was not necessary because only gullible people would fall victim for such antics.
But four years on, Umoren was murdered at that same location by a suspected serial rapist, Uduak Frank Akpan, a 20-year-old posing as a recruitment agent.
Umoren had just graduated from the University of Uyo and was waiting for her National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) call-up when she was murdered while on a job search.
Ekpe-Juda said he became angry when he saw the news of her death at the same area he had warned Awunah to investigate.
He told TheNiche that “I got a text message inviting me for a job interview (me an occasional employer of labour), and my friend, James Essien, a former attorney general of Akwa Ibom state, also got the same kind of text message (himself, an employer of labour).
“The interview venue was somewhere along Oron Road in Uyo. Then I was residing in Lagos.
“I got in touch with my former classmate, John Babatunde Kokumo, at the time the commissioner of police in Edo state. He arranged for me to see the commissioner of police in Akwa Ibom.
“I went and met the commissioner of police [Awunah]. I informed the CP of the unsolicited text message I received and told him I want him to set in motion a crack team to investigate and bring the people behind it to book. He told me I should not bother, that it is only ‘gullible people would fall for such.’”
Ekpe-Juda said if the police had taken the warning seriously, Umoren might still be alive.