New Telegraph

Kidnappers: We abducted policewoman, NSCDC officer, others

A 33-year-old man, Ibrahim Muhammed, yesterday the told police at the Zone 2 Command how they abducted a policewoman, officials of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and a man identified as Alhaji Oro, among others. Other suspects are Adamu Saliu (25), Abubakar Sodiq (24), Tambaye Muhammed (25), Adamu Sulaiman (36) and Akanni Musa (38). Ibrahim said gang’s first operation was brought by a man, Muhammed Usman, whose younger brother was helping an NSCDC official to take care of his cows at Eggua area of Ogun State.

The suspect said Usman brought the idea that they should abduct the NSCDC official and collect ransom from his family and he would not ask for the cows in the care of his brother. Ibrahim said they kidnapped the NSCDC official on the day he went to check on the cows at the farm. According to the suspect, the gang kept the victim in the forest for three days. He said: “We moved him from one forest to another for the three days. Before he was released, we collected N3 million from his family members.”

Ibrahim said on the day the NSCDC official took them to a spot where his family members would meet him, they also kidnapped another victim, Alhaji Oro, who was going to check his cows in another farm in Eggua area of Yewa. He added: “After the Alhaji was kidnapped, we held him for four days and then demanded a N4 million ransom from his family. Although the money was paid on time, we still killed the man. We left the scene and trekked from Ogun State forest for two weeks, before we ambushed another victim, Umaru, at a village in Oyo State.

“Umaru was also going to check his farm when we abducted him. We held him for two days and demanded N1million for his release from his family members. We released him after the money was collected from him.” Ibrahim said after they had released Umaru, they came across Alhaji Adegoke near Iseyin in Oyo State and he was also abducted. According to him, N25 million ransom was also demanded from Adegoke’s family members. He said: “Where we kept the Alhaji, Sodiq was assigned to guard him from escaping. Unfortunately, Sulaiman, Saliu Tambaye and I went out for another operation, before we came back the suspect had escaped.

Sodiq slept off. That was how he was able to run. We didn’t collect any money from him. But we collected money from others. “When we noticed he had escaped, we went into the forest shooting sporadically thinking that he was still in the forest. If he was to still there, we would have killed him. “It was poverty that made me join the gang when I was invited for the NSCDC official’s abduction.” The police said one of the suspects, Musa, was the herbalist preparing charms for the kidnappers before going on operations. Musa told New Telegraph that though he was a herbalist, he did not prepare charms for the suspected kidnappers. He said: “It was Ibrahim who used my phone to call Adamu, not knowing that Adamu had been arrested. That was how I was also picked up. I was also given two cows stolen from the NSCDC official.”

Parading the suspects yesterday at the Zone 2 Command Headquarters, Onikan, the Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG), Ahmed Iliyasu, said the suspects were arrested in line with the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Muhammed Adamu’s directives to mop up arms from criminal elements and gangs across country, with a focus on community policing.

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