Four suspected kidnappers who reportedly collected a sum of N3.5m, a carton of Schnapps, 30 litres of palm oil and 10 tubers of yam before their victims were released have been arrested.
The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Abimbola Oyeyemi disclosed this on Wednesday.
The kidnappers were reported to have abducted three victims in Ode-Omi in the Ogun Waterside Local Government Area of Ogun state a boundary community between Lagos and Ogun states on the eve of the Eid-el Adha, penultimate Sunday.
Those victims who were later freed by their captors after allegedly collected the items and N3.5m were the son of the Chief Imam of Ode-Omi, Abdulazeez Sanni; Adams Bamidele and Jelili Adams.
A family source said on Monday that the kidnappers collected the items and the sum of N3.5m from them before they released their people to them.
But, on Wednesday, the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Abimbola Oyeyemi disclosed that four of the suspected kidnappers have been arrested.
Oyeyemi in a terse statement wrote,
“Four out of the kidnappers who abducted three people including the son of chief imam at Ode-omi in ijebu waterside on Salah day have been arrested this morning by the police”.
When our correspondent asked the PPRO on how the suspected kidnappers were arrested, he said, the Operatives of Anti-Kidnapping Unit of the Police command had laid an ambush for the kidnappers since the incident happened.
Oyeyemi said,
“They had been planning to relocate from the creeks but, we haven’t allowed them to leave there since all of these days.
“This morning (Wednesday) they did not know that we had surrounded them and laid an ambush for them, they made attempts to leave the creeks, we allowed to enter their vehicle and as they attempted to leave, we rounded them up and arrested them with their guns and other ammunition”.
When asked whether the suspects were the ones that collected the N3.5m and the other items, the PPRO said:
“it is possible they are the ones who collected yam, oil, money among others”.
