‘We paid kidnappers N.8m after intense negotiations’

Two kidnap victims, Isah Ibrahim and Yunusa Yusuf, have said their abductors collected N800,000 from their relatives before they were freed. Wife of one of the victims, Mrs. Felicia Yunusa, said the kidnappers earlier demanded N10m ransom. Isah Ibrahim and Yunusa Yusuf were kidnapped after the kidnappers shot dead a man at Sheda in Kwali […]

Two kidnap victims, Isah Ibrahim and Yunusa Yusuf, have said their abductors collected N800,000 from their relatives before they were freed.

Wife of one of the victims, Mrs. Felicia Yunusa, said the kidnappers earlier demanded N10m ransom.

Isah Ibrahim and Yunusa Yusuf were kidnapped after the kidnappers shot dead a man at Sheda in Kwali Area Council of the FCT, last Monday.

Sources close to the family of Isah Ibrahim said he was released on Thursday after the family paid N500,000, while Yunusa Yusuf was released on Friday after the payment of N300,000.

“The money was taken to them at about 2:30am. They released him to us and asked us to take another direction without looking back. And that was how we walked inside the bush till we arrived home,” a family member of Isah Ibrahim said.

The second victim, Yunusa Yusuf, said a family member raised N300,000 and handed it over to the kidnappers before he was released at about 2am on Friday.

Yusuf said the kidnappers raided his house and took away seven handsets before he was abducted.

He said they were fed twice daily with rice while in captivity for five days and added that they had walked through a hilly road into a thick forest in Kuje village.

“When they were moving us out of the town, they broke into a shop and took half bag of rice and bread. That was what they cooked for us twice daily for the five days they held us captive.

“A man that supplied them food items and ingredients from the town came with a motorcycle and dropped the items somewhere around the bush,” he said.

Kidnappers are notorious in Kuje, Kwali and Abaji area councils. Three kidnapped farmers allegedly paid N700,000 to their abductors recently.

The farmers, Mohammed, Salisu and Gimba, were kidnapped on a farm near the Abaji General Hospital.

A relative of one of the victims said the kidnappers earlier demanded for N5m, but that they agreed to collect N700,000, adding that the owner of the farm, who is a prominent figure and native of Abaji, paid the ransom.

He said the victims were set free at about 2am at the edge of a thick forest near Yewuti village in Kwali Area Council where they were believed to have been held captive.

“It was about 2am on Thursday when a call came in that they had been released and some vigilantes were mobilised to take them from the bush back to Abaji,” he said.

Our reporter gathered that the kidnappers had wanted to abduct the owner of the farm, but that when they missed him, they abducted the three men who were working on the farm. 

When contacted, spokesman of the FCT Police Command, DSP Anjuguri Manzah, confirmed the release of the three abducted farmers but denied knowledge of any payment of ransom.

Some traditional rulers in Kwali Area Council had in May requested the FCT Minister, Muhammad Musa Bello, to deploy all resources at his disposal to curtail incessant cases of kidnapping in the area.

The Etsu of Kwali, Alhaji Shaban Audu Nizazo III, who spoke with newsmen on behalf of the chiefs after an emergency security meeting which had traditional rulers and representatives of various security agencies in attendance, said the wave of criminal activities, especially kidnapping, in the area was alarming.

“We are calling on government to use all its powers and resources to ensure that kidnapping, rustling and other dangerous criminal activities are stopped in the area council,” he said.