The suspects in the alleged abduction plot paraded by police in Makurdi.
“We keep talking amongst ourselves that the country is hard and we may need to kidnap or do rituals to make money.”
That was how the conversation started between Chijoke Ifeanyi (33), Chinedu Udoma (32) and pregnant Ebere Osidi (27) who are now cooling their heels in the custody of the Benue State Police Command in Makurdi.
Before long, the women confessed to have dragged four other men, including a soldier, to become part of the plot to kidnap a 53-year-old Igbo businessman based in North Bank area of Makurdi.
Daily Trust reports that luck, however, ran out on the suspects; the three women and four men - among them a soldier serving with 26 Battalion in Sokoto State - as the police apprehended them minutes to the execution of their plan.
The Commissioner of Police, Bashir Makama, who paraded the suspects at the command headquarters in Makurdi, said the syndicate was rounded up by his men shortly before they could actually carry out their plan following a tip off.
Makama fingered one of the women, Mrs. Chijoke Ifeanyi, as the brain behind the kidnap attempt of her elder sister’s husband, Mr. Kelechi Okoli, who she lived with before getting married.
Speaking with our correspondent in an interview, Ifeanyi, a mother of five confessed to have planned the kidnap with the two other women who were her friends and that they had already contributed over N60,000 each for the upkeep of their victim when eventually taken into custody.
Ifeanyi also confessed to have masterminded the plan after one Onyema, now at large, sold the idea to her in July this year and resurfaced in October threatening to deal with her if she failed to provide insider information for the successful kidnap of her in-law.
According to her, Onyema said he wanted to raise money from the would-be victim who was the father to the lady he was in love with and wanted to satisfy her desires so she would accept his proposal and that being a relative of the family, he threatened to use her for the purpose.
“Onyema told me that he liked my sister’s daughter but that she had requested for some money from him and that he wanted to kidnap her father to raise the money for her.
“So he appealed to me to become the insider that would feed him with necessary information. It was first in July and then he resurfaced in October with a threat. I later mooted the idea to my two friends - Mrs. Udoma and Mrs. Osidi,” she said.
Mrs Ifeanyi who is a cosmetics dealer, added that she talked to the soldier who hailed from the same community with her in Anambra State to become part of the plan by providing her gang with ‘boys’ that would play various roles in the abduction of her in-law.
On the part of Mrs Udoma, she confessed to have agreed to the kidnap plan because of the present hardship in the country which made business very difficult to run at her North Bank residential area.
“We (trio) also agreed on the sharing of the money to contribute to actualise the plan. I contributed N67,000 and when I asked my two friends, they said they have made their own contributions as well,’’ she said.
Meanwhile, on his part, the victim, Mr. Okoli, thanked God and appreciated the police for bursting the evil plan.
But the soldier, Lance Corporal Ifeanyi Ebube (26), who is on study leave at Nigerian Military School of Engineering (NASME) in Makurdi, explained that the three housewives had approached him to organise some boys in connection with the kidnapping and that he had escorted Mrs. Ifeanyi to see someone and that was when they were arrested.
Our correspondent also learnt that the women had already paid N300,000 to acquire a room where their victim would be kept and set aside part of the money for his upkeep.
They contributed another N60,000 for his feeding based on the plan that they would extort a minimum of N20 million from the family or kill the man as instructed by Mrs. Ifeanyi.
That was how the conversation started between Chijoke Ifeanyi (33), Chinedu Udoma (32) and pregnant Ebere Osidi (27) who are now cooling their heels in the custody of the Benue State Police Command in Makurdi.
Before long, the women confessed to have dragged four other men, including a soldier, to become part of the plot to kidnap a 53-year-old Igbo businessman based in North Bank area of Makurdi.
Daily Trust reports that luck, however, ran out on the suspects; the three women and four men - among them a soldier serving with 26 Battalion in Sokoto State - as the police apprehended them minutes to the execution of their plan.
The Commissioner of Police, Bashir Makama, who paraded the suspects at the command headquarters in Makurdi, said the syndicate was rounded up by his men shortly before they could actually carry out their plan following a tip off.
Makama fingered one of the women, Mrs. Chijoke Ifeanyi, as the brain behind the kidnap attempt of her elder sister’s husband, Mr. Kelechi Okoli, who she lived with before getting married.
Speaking with our correspondent in an interview, Ifeanyi, a mother of five confessed to have planned the kidnap with the two other women who were her friends and that they had already contributed over N60,000 each for the upkeep of their victim when eventually taken into custody.
Ifeanyi also confessed to have masterminded the plan after one Onyema, now at large, sold the idea to her in July this year and resurfaced in October threatening to deal with her if she failed to provide insider information for the successful kidnap of her in-law.
According to her, Onyema said he wanted to raise money from the would-be victim who was the father to the lady he was in love with and wanted to satisfy her desires so she would accept his proposal and that being a relative of the family, he threatened to use her for the purpose.
“Onyema told me that he liked my sister’s daughter but that she had requested for some money from him and that he wanted to kidnap her father to raise the money for her.
“So he appealed to me to become the insider that would feed him with necessary information. It was first in July and then he resurfaced in October with a threat. I later mooted the idea to my two friends - Mrs. Udoma and Mrs. Osidi,” she said.
Mrs Ifeanyi who is a cosmetics dealer, added that she talked to the soldier who hailed from the same community with her in Anambra State to become part of the plan by providing her gang with ‘boys’ that would play various roles in the abduction of her in-law.
On the part of Mrs Udoma, she confessed to have agreed to the kidnap plan because of the present hardship in the country which made business very difficult to run at her North Bank residential area.
“We (trio) also agreed on the sharing of the money to contribute to actualise the plan. I contributed N67,000 and when I asked my two friends, they said they have made their own contributions as well,’’ she said.
Meanwhile, on his part, the victim, Mr. Okoli, thanked God and appreciated the police for bursting the evil plan.
But the soldier, Lance Corporal Ifeanyi Ebube (26), who is on study leave at Nigerian Military School of Engineering (NASME) in Makurdi, explained that the three housewives had approached him to organise some boys in connection with the kidnapping and that he had escorted Mrs. Ifeanyi to see someone and that was when they were arrested.
Our correspondent also learnt that the women had already paid N300,000 to acquire a room where their victim would be kept and set aside part of the money for his upkeep.
They contributed another N60,000 for his feeding based on the plan that they would extort a minimum of N20 million from the family or kill the man as instructed by Mrs. Ifeanyi.
Daily Trust
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