Ibekimi Oriamaja Reports
Friends and family of the Divisional Police Officer, or DPO, who was abducted by terrorists while en route to his place of duty in Birnin-Gwari, Kaduna State, have expressed concern over the terrorists’ alleged threat to murder the police officer while he is being held captive if their ransom demand is not met.
They claimed that despite paying the thugs N7 million, the terrorists continued to threaten the DPO’s life.
In an interview with the BBC Hausa, a relative of the abducted DPO stated: “They first requested N550 million, and we told them we didn’t have that much money. We talked to our friends and family, who gave the terrorists a total of N5 million in donations. They informed us that the N5 million was for food after receiving it and that we also needed to purchase them a Boxer motorcycle and a N1 million recharge card.
“We raised an additional N2 million and sent it their way. The individual who stole the money was also taken into captivity, and he is now there.
The DPO has been stooling blood while being kept outside in the rain for the entirety of this rainy season, but he is still alive. He constantly begs us to try to break their chains because they are chained. Nothing we can do will change it.
After receiving ransom, kidnappers turned off my brother’s phone — Relation
In a separate incident, Edwin Itodo’s captors in Akpanya, Kogi State’s Igalamela/Odolu Local Government Area, have refused to free him despite receiving a ransom.
James Audu’s relative claimed yesterday in Nsukka that the victim’s phone line has been turned off by the kidnappers.
The family is in terror, according to Audu, when the kidnappers disconnected his brother’s phone line after receiving the money.
He claimed that the family haggled with the kidnappers till they agreed on a deal after they initially sought N20 million.
He continued by saying that his brother, a bartender, was serving clients when the alleged kidnappers attacked around two weeks ago, shooting Johnson, one of his clients, to death before snatching him away.
When they arrived at my brother’s beer parlor two Sundays ago at around 7:30 p.m., they gave the order for everyone to lie down, he said. When they told other clients to lie down, they shot Johnson, one of the patrons, who was dozing off. He was too sleepy to follow the instructions. He passed away instantly.
They took my brother away on their motorcycle at that precise moment. The kidnappers made a ransom demand of N20 million two days later. Before releasing him, they shouted out the names of affluent members of our neighborhood and told us to go get N250,000 from each of them.
