kidnappings and demand for ransom that has gained ground among the militants of the Niger Delta are gradually creeping into the South-West, particularly Lagos.
For instance, two men are currently in the custody of the Lagos State Police Command over their involvement in the recent kidnap of a young boy from a church in Isolo, Lagos.
The suspects, John Akinsola and Segun Akanon, reportedly kidnapped the boy, Ebuka Philips, from the Ago Palace Way, Isolo parish of the Christ Embassy on December 15, 2008.
After luring the boy from the church, the suspects reportedly established contact with his parents and demanded a N20m ransom for his release.
They were, however, arrested while they were attempting to collect the ransom at a spot in Sango Ota, Ogun State.
Earlier, two suspects had been paraded before journalists for kidnapping a young girl while returning from school at Abule-Egba, a suburb of Lagos.
The suspects, who reportedly demanded $1,000 from the father of the victim, were later arrested at the point where they were to collect the ransom.
Another development creeping into Lagos is subtle blackmail where criminals get across to their targets demanding for money under the guise that they have been engaged to kill them.
For instance, the police recently paraded a suspect, ThankGod Ogu, for allegedly attempting to defraud one Mrs. Adaku Odenigwe of N400, 000.
Ogu, who introduced himself as Mr. Kenneth Jackson, was said to have called Odenigwe on the telephone and claimed to have been paid N4m by an undisclosed person to kill her.
He, however, promised to spare her life if she could pay a ransom of N400, 000 to a certain bank account.
Also, on Friday, the police paraded 30-year-old Ifeanyi Oguzie, a resident of 38, Church Street, Ijaiye, Ojokoro, another suburb of Lagos for issuing a threat letter to a Lagos-based top journalist with a view to extorting him.
Oguzie reportedly wrote a letter to the journalist that he (Oguzie) had been contracted to assassinate him. He left a telephone number which he asked the target to call if he still cherished his life.
During a telephone conversation, he reportedly demanded N500, 000 from the journalist. It was later negotiated to N200, 000.
It was at the point of picking the ransom in front of the church, where, incidentally, both of them attend, that he was arrested by men of the SCIB.
The Public Relations Officer, Lagos State Police Command, Mr. Frank Mba, confirmed that there had been a number of cases of “imitation of the culture of kidnapping and ransom demanding.”
Mba said that there was no cause for alarm because such cases were “just pseudo cases” and not classical cases of kidnapping.
He said that investigations had shown that hoodlums who were finding it difficult to engage in armed robbery in the state were responsible for the incidents.
In another development, the Redeemer’s University, Mowe, Ogun State and the Ogun State Police Command have confirmed that two students of the institution were missing.
The university, parents and students of RUN had been thrown into confusion following the alleged abduction of a 200-Level student of Business Administration, Gbenga Sotubo, and a 300-Level student in the Department of History and International Relations, Miss Akande Oluwarantimi, since last Monday.
The institution’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Oyewale Tomori, had on Tuesday after the incident, called an emergency meeting with the entire students where he officially broke the news.
Akande was said to have been declared missing after visiting one of the new generation banks on Monday evening to withdraw money with her ATM card in company with some of her friends.
But on getting to the gate of her hostel, she told her colleagues that she had forgotten to buy a recharge card for her mobile telephone.
“She went back but did not return. It was during the 11pm bed check that it was discovered that Ranti was not around,” a university source told one of our correspondents.
It was gathered that the Akande’s kidnappers had called her parents and demanded a ransom of N5m.
A police source confirmed this and noted that the police were liaising with MTN to track down the suspects who reportedly called from Ijebu area of Ogun State.
In a memo by the university, the management confirmed this development. Also, the institution’s Registrar, Mr. Babatunde Adebayo, confirmed the development to our correspondent in his office on Friday.
But he insisted that the students could not be said to have been kidnapped since there was no evidence to reach that conclusion yet.
He said, “I will not use the word kidnap because it is only the students involved that can tell us what exactly happened to them. So, until they come back, I may not be able to tell you whether they were kidnapped or not.”
The Police Public Relations Officer, Ogun State Command, Mr. Muyiwa Adejobi, told one of our correspondents on the telephone on Sunday that the Divisional Police Officer, Ibafo Police Station, had informed the command of the abduction incidents.
“I’m not aware that two students of the university were kidnapped; I’m only aware of the female student. The DPO told me that she had been found but the parents had taken the girl to the hospital,” he said.
However, our correspondents gathered that due to this development, the university has beefed up security on the campus.