The Bayelsa State Police Command has arrested and paraded five suspected kidnappers over their role in the abduction of a six-year-old boy, Antonio Talbot.

Antonio, the son of Bayelsa State Commission for Water Resources, Nnegi Talbot, was kidnapped at gunpoint on December 23, 2019 at his father’s residence in the New Commissioners’ Quarter in Opolo area of Yenagoa.

Four days after, the bandits contacted the commissioner on his mobile phone for the second time after the incident and demanded N50m ransom to release his son. But he told them he did not have such money and that he had not seen such a huge amount of money in his entire life.

The police, however, rescued the boy on Tuesday and arrested five suspects in connection with the incident.

Parading the five suspects at the state police command headquarters, CP Anozia said the rescue operation lasted three days as his men kept tracking the hoodlums.

“We were not relaxing. We were tracking them. We were on their trail since the incident was reported until our men got them and rescued the little boy today,” he said.

One of the kidnap suspects, Elawei Akpoko, 36, who is married with five children, said in an interview that the leader of the gang, one Ebi, did not tell them they were on a mission to kidnap the commissioner’s son.

Akpoko, who dropped out of school at Junior Secondary School level, said Ebi told them to accompany him to go demand his debt from Talbot whom he claimed had not settled him after using him during the last governorship campaign in Nembe LGA.

“Before the day we went, we had been to his (commissioner’s) house, but he said he had no money. Before we knew, Ebi had brought the little boy to the car (that we used),” he said.