BILLIONAIRE oil tycoon Chief Femi Otedola has escaped a plan by a three-man kidnapping gang to abduct him thanks to the vigilance of the police who stepped in to foil the plan and arrest the suspects.
Over recent years, kidnapping high profile public figures for a ransom has become a growing trend with families of several ministers and government officials falling victim. Earlier this week, a notorious three-man gang had sought to add Chief Otedola to their number of victims but the Intelligence Response Team of the Nigeria Police Force managed to foil the plan.
According to the police, Ikechukwu Daniel, 28, Adeyemi Kayode, 29 and Ayodele Temitayo, confessed to have planned Chief Otedola’s kidnapping. They were also said to have admitted being responsible for various high profile kidnappings in southwestern Nigeria of late.
While Mr Kayode was said to be a personnel of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Mr Daniel, the prime suspect, was dismissed from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, for cultism. Police spokesman Don Awunah, said two AK47 rifles loaded with live ammunition were recovered from them, adding that they planned to collect N1bn as ransom.
Mr Awunah added: “The arrest was achieved through coordinated intelligence gathering and deployment of technical investigative tools that spanned several weeks. The principal suspect, Ikechukwu Daniel, a 28-year-old indigene of Imo State, who is the mastermind of the gang, was rusticated from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, due to his cult related activities on campus in 2009/10.
“He doubles as the IT guru of the kidnap gang with a mastery of computer applications and he made damning revelations of their criminal exploits in the southwest of the country. Another member of the gang, 29-year-old Adeyemi Kayode, a serving officer of the and a native of Ojoo in Ibadan, Oyo State serves as a personal assistant to the commandant of the Oyo State Command."
He added that Mr Kayode took undue advantage of his office to obtain the GSM number and location of their would-be victim and then hatched the plan on how to kidnap the business magnate. Mr Temitayo, the third suspect, is a native of Oyo in Ibadan and was the marksman and armourer of the gang, who was dismissed from the 213 Battalion of the Nigerian Army in Maiduguri as a private in 2015.
“All the suspects made confessional statements revealing that they had successfully carried out several high-profile kidnappings and two AK47 rifles loaded with live ammunition were recovered from them. While efforts are currently being intensified to apprehend other members of the gang and extend the investigation to their other criminal enterprise, the inspector general of police Ibrahim Idris restates the commitment of the force to clamp down on all criminal activities across the country and reassures law-abiding citizens that criminal elements would be eventually apprehended and charged to court,” Mr Awunah added.
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