A housewife, Mistura Olasinde, and her two daughters, Hauwa and Fatima, have been kidnapped by gunmen around Galadima District of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
Confirming the incident on Monday, September 11, 2023, the husband of the woman, Surajudeen Olasinde, said the incident occured on Friday, September 8, when his wife and the children were driving home in their Toyota Highlander from Garki to Starwood Estate where they reside.
Olasinde, an official of the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA), said: “Their abduction happened at about 7 p.m. 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 attack them.
“They started shooting to scare people away before they marched them into the bush.”
He disclosed that the residents of the area quickly called the Divisional Police Station at Galadimawa immediately the news got to them, saying the DPO, Jerry Cole, led a team of his officers to comb the bushes in collaboration with men of the vigilante.
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He said the search effort was, however, unsuccessful.
Olasinde, an indigene of Offa in Kwara State, said he was not in Abuja when the incident occurred.
He added: “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 a.m. 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.”
Olasinde, who revealed that he arrived in Abuja on Saturday, said the gunmen called his brother-in-law to demand N100 million ransom.
The public servant stated: “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 kill 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.”
Olasinde, who said they were able to raise about N2.8 million, said the kidnappers directed them to bring the ransom Saturday night.
He added: “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 took 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.”
On how his wife and daughters were faring, he said besides the injuries sustained, the psychological trauma was nothing to write home about
He added that they were later taken to a hospital for treatment.
The incident was confirmed by the Chairman of Residents of Starwood Estate, Kayode Adedoyin, enumerated several kidnap cases that had took place in the surroundings.
The FCT Police Command has however yet to speak on the incident as of press time.
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