NIMASA staff alleges threat to life
A 50-year-old staff of Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Mr. Auta Walbe, who alleged that his family members threatened to kill him, has called on the general public, the police and the State Security Service (SSS) to intervene and serve his life. Walbe said that his people are seriously planning to take him out of his office in Calabar to Jos where they will have access to him.
He told newsmen in Calabar on Tuesday that his family members have fabricated stories which they have fed his office in Lagos alleging that he was not medically fit to work and needed immediate medical attention and therefore requested his office in Lagos to release him for them to be taken to Jos for medical attention.
Hear him, “My relations have reported to my office in Lagos that I have not been in a stable health condition and would be needed to be moved from Calabar to Jos for treatment.”
Walbe who has been in the employment for over 24 years and a senior staff said he had been trailed by suspected hired assassins since 2013.
He explained that the plan of his people was to move him to a hospital in Jos where he could be killed with a lethal injection. He also said that the same people had bundled him to an unnamed hospital in Jos, but he was able to escape through the swift intervention of his lawyer who alerted the police of their action.
“I received a telephone call from my cousin, Felix Walbe, telling me that one of my relations had informed him that if I fail to come to Jos, it will affect my job. This was not too long before a top-ranking staff of NIMASA in Lagos called me that one Umar and one Anslem had written to him [top ranking staff] that I am not well; that they want to come to Calabar to take me to the hospital” he revealed.
Mr. Walbe, who pointed out that there had been some suspected visitors to where he is leaving of recent, appealed to other security agencies to come to his rescue. “Of recent, there have been both internal and external attempts to penetrate my room in the facility where I am staying.”
Some staff of Cross River state office of NIMASA who spoke with journalists on the matter on condition of anonymity said, Mr. Walbe has been hardworking and has been relating peacefully with all staff.
“We are very surprised to hear this. Mr. Walbe is a very nice man who had never failed in his duties and had never displayed any form of ill-health,” they said and called on the NIMASA authorities to also use its internal mechanisms to investigate the matter.
