A rescued victim of kidnapping has recounted his ordeal in the hands of his abductors, saying he was denied food and water throughout the three days spent in their custody, at the Urohi forest in Ekpoma, the administrative headquarters of Esan West local Government Area of Edo State.
The victim, Joseph Patrick, 35, who was rescued by a combined team of local vigilante and policemen, said this while narrating his ordeal at the state police command headquarters in Benin City.
He said the abduction occurred on Monday, July 6, 2020.
Patrick, a commercial motorcycle rider, said he was travelling along Ekpoma-Urohi road when three armed men waylaid him and led him into the bush.
He said while in the kidnappers’ den, he was blindfolded, tied up as they demanded for N2 million ransom from him.
The victim, however, narrated that he was finally rescued on Wednesday, July 8, 2020, after the local vigilante and police engaged his captors in a gun duel, which ended in the arrest of one of the suspects.
The arrested suspect, one Yusuf Ismaila, was paraded at the state police command headquarters in Benin City.
The command Public Relations Officer, DSP Chidi Nwabuzor, said the suspect was a member of a five-man gang of kidnappers terrorising the Benin-Auchi axis of Edo State.
Nwabuzor added that Ekpoma Police Divisional Officer received a report of the kidnap of one Joseph Patrick about 1pm on Wednesday, July 8, 2020.
He explained that the Police, in collaboration with local vigilante and hunters, embarked on bush combing as the kidnappers engaged them in a gun duel.
“In the process, one of them was hit by a bullet and he was arrested. He gave his name as Yusuf Ismaila, aged about 23 years old, a Fulani by tribe from Kano State,” Nwabuzor stated.
The suspect, Ismaila, who spoke through an interpreter, said he migrated to Edo State as a labourer but took to crime with the connivance of his fleeing gang members.
He said that his leader, one Ibrahim, had sent him to fetch water from a nearby stream when local vigilante trailed him to their base in the forest where they arrested him and rescued their victim.
