Families of the abducted pupils and teachers of the Apostolic Faith Group of Schools, Emure-Ekiti, heaved a sigh of relief after the kidnap victims were freed last Sunday.
LEADERSHIP learnt that the relatives of the abductees and the management of the private school did all they could to ensure they regained their freedom from the kidnappers’ den.
The school bus conveying the five pupils, four staffers and the driver to Eporo-Ekiti was on Monday, January 29, ambushed by the gunmen and whisked away to the forest.
They later contacted the families of the victims to demand a ransom of N100 million for their release, but later reduced the ransom to N15 million.
The kidnapped victims were said to have been released at about 1:30am on Sunday in a forest between Owo and Oba-Akoko in Ondo State.
Speaking on how the money was raised, one of the parents of the victims, who does not want his name in the print, disclosed that people of their community, both living at home and abroad, made contributions towards raising the ransom.
“The kidnappers collected N15 million. We (parents and families) contributed N4 million, people came to our aid by contributing the rest. Even in the markets, they contributed so that they would be rescued,” he said.
The kidnappers, according to him, told the victims’ families to bring with them other items such as fried rice, drinks, and tramadol alongside the ransom to the forest to secure the release of the kidnap victims.
The driver, it was gathered, was killed by the kidnappers after he was refused to give the telephone numbers of his relatives for ransom demand.
“They told us to take the money and the items to a bush in Ondo State, a farmstead called Ago Paanu, at about 7pm. It is between Oba Akoko and Owo. Before they could release them, they confirmed the money and those items. We walked through the bush till about 1am when we saw the victims.”
On why the driver was killed by the gunmen, the family source said: “The children told us that when they (kidnappers) were asking for the telephone numbers of relatives to call each of them in the forest, the driver told them he didn’t know that of his wife and the school proprietor’s offhand. This made them angry, and they hit him with their gun.
“He was said to be having issues after the injury he sustained for five days and was shot dead on Saturday morning. The most painful thing was that his corpse was burnt in the bush, according to what the pupils told us.
“It was a bitter experience for the victims, especially looking at how the driver was killed.”
He commended the state government and the security agencies for their efforts.
On how they retrieved the victims from the bush, he said: “The kidnappers were calling persistently that we should hurry up. They said we should meet them at Ikare Junction. I wondered how come Ikare junction when they kidnapped the children at Eporo.
“When we got to Ikare Junction, they said we should buy food, so we went to buy rice and meat. When we were about to get to the Waterworks, they told us that we should turn back. Then the kidnapper described a road that only big vehicles could pass. We decided that all of us should not go there so that they would not think that we came with policemen, and that could make them injure the abductees with them.
“When we told them we were on the path, he said only two people should come. He threatened to waste the kidnapped persons if more than two persons came. Only two continued while the rest of us sat on the road there. The driver of the vehicle and one person continued far into the forest and drove back. So, they now used a motorcycle to trace the kidnappers to drop the money and the food.
“On collecting the money and food, they released the kidnapped persons. They used a motorcycle to bring the kidnapped persons to the road; that was when they called us to bring the vehicle to convey them.”
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