I got N200k from N5million ransom – kidnapper
Gayya Alhaji Abdu, 20, while confessing to kidnapping crime, has revealed he sometime received N200,000 from the N5million paid for the release of a victim.
Gaya and his accomplice, Siyyo Alhaji Amadu, 21, had turned themselves in to hunters in Taraba State, vowing not to go back to the crime.
According to him, the police had declared him wanted before he joined the criminal gang. To evade arrest, Gaya said that he took refuge with a friend, who was a member of a kidnapping gang operating fro Jalingo, Kona and Lankabiri Mountains.
He said, “It was my friend that took me to a kidnappers’ den on top of a mountain around Kona. The gang was under the control of one kingpin called Bashe.
“On the mountain, l met many victims because all those that were abducted would be taken there and released after ransom is paid.
“l decided to repent because l could not withstand the horror and the ways and manners the victims were being treated, and also, l don’t want to be killed because most of the kidnappers end up being killed by security agents or hunters.”
Gaya’s accomplice, Amedu revealed he decided to quit kidnapping because he realised “it is a very wicked act to abduct a fellow human being and force him to pay ransom.”
Responding, the leader of the hunters, Babangida Kwamando, said that former criminals who showed penitence “are made to swear by the Holy Qur’an that they will never commit such crimes before they are accepted and integrated into the hunters’ association.”
Source: Daily Trust.
