Surajudeen Olasinde, a resident of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), has narrated how his wife, Mistura Olasinde, and her two daughters – Hauwa, and Fatima, were attacked recently by gunmen.
Olasinde, a staff member of the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA), told newsmen that the incident happened around Galadima District of Abuja.
He disclosed that his wife and children were driving home in their Toyota Highlander from Garki to Starwood Estate where they reside.
Olasinde recalled: “Their abduction happened around 7 pm last Friday on their way from Garki. Immediately they reached Kabusa Garden Estate at the spot where the road was terribly bad, the kidnappers came out from the nearby bush and attacked them.”
“They started shooting to scare people away before they marched them into the bush,” he said.
He added that residents quickly called the Divisional Police Station at Galadimawa immediately the news got to them and the DPO, Jerry Cole, led a team of his officers to comb the bushes in collaboration with men of the vigilante all to no avail.
His words:
“I was not in Abuja when it happened because I have been transferred to Kwara State. But I was told that the police and the vigilantes searched the bush all through 3 am on Saturday without success.
“We also contacted officers of the Department of State Services (DSS). They tracked the kidnappers’ movement and the search got to a forest in Kuje.”
He revealed that the kidnappers called his brother-in-law to demand a N100 million ransom.
According to him, “They asked for N100 million. Later, they brought it down to N50 million, then to N10 million.
“But at the end of the day, they asked us how much we had with us. The kidnappers even told us that if they killed my wife and my two daughters, they could sell their body parts above whatever amount we claimed to have.
“We resorted to begging, pleading with them not to harm or kill my family.”
“When we told them that we didn’t have much money, they asked us about the Toyota Highlander and we told them that it was part of what we sold out to raise the money we planned to give them.
He narrated: “They directed us to bring the money around 8 pm. on Saturday. They told us to go to Kabusa Village and pick any Okada rider (commercial motorcyclist) to a place where we did not know.
“My brother-in-law and I climbed the same bike to deliver the ransom. When we got to the thick forest where they were, they came out, collected the ransom. We gave them N2 million and N840,000.
“It took about 40 minutes before my wife and daughters got to the point where we waited for them.
“So we begged the Okada rider to take my wife and daughters home, and to come back and pick us too.”
