Ondo Kidnapped Couple Faulted Police, Amotekun Claim Over Release,Says They Paid N2m As Ransom

The kidnapped couple along Uso, Mr and Mrs Gbenga Ibikunle have debunked the claim of the Police and Amotekun Corps that they rescued them from their abductors hideout, saying the statement was far from the truth.

They were kidnapped by some suspected gunmen along Akure-Owo Expressway at Uso community while travelling with their children from Ebonyi State to Akure last year.

PATH learnt that the kidnappers matched their victims into thick forest leaving their children behind. The kidnappers demanded for N20m as ransom.

The state Police Public Relations Officer, Mr Tee-Leo Ikoro, said the crack detectives comprising the police, the military, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and Amotekun were already on top of the situation while investigations were ongoing.

Mr Ibikunle said his family members paid N2m ransom demanded by the kidnappers to secure their release.

According to his account, “ We were traveling back from Ebonyi state to Akure on the 5th of January and when we got to Uso towards Ogbese, i saw a bike man riding in front of my car on the same direction. All of a sudden, he stopped and i hit him with my car.

As I stopped to help the man alongside my wife, the kidnappers came out from the bush and started shooting for about 10 mins.

They started beating me and later marched us into the bush and others suspects ransacked my car and carted away valuable items including huge some of money.

My children wanted to follow us to where they were dragging us but the kidnappers chased them away back to the major road.

We walked for like five hours inside the bush and later took us to where they keep other victims. They tied us down and started beating us again.

They later gave us mobile phone to call our family demanding for #20m.

At the end of the day, my family rally round and paid #2M. Other victim we met paid # 10M and we were all released at the same spot ,in fact I was the one who carried the money to where they counted it to confirm if the ransom was complete.

I was then surprised that police were claiming that they rescued me. If the police were professional enough, they would have arrested them all because they came out on the major road to collect the ransom. They are just deceiving us all.