By Rotimi Ojomoyela
Ado-Ekiti — The gun-wielding bandits, who abducted a pregnant woman, nursing mother and three others in Erinmope- Ekiti, Moba local government areas of Ekiti State, have demanded N100million ransom from their family.
Narrating their ordeals, the head of the family, Muhammad Saliu Okanlawon (alias Elebenla), said gunmen stormed their residence in Erinmope-Ekiti over the weekend and abducted five members of his household.
The 60-year-old Mahmud, who is also a cattle dealer, said those abducted were wives and children of his younger brother and son, giving their identities as Kehinde Mahmud, Adijat Hussein, Hawawu Suleiman, Fatima and another also named Fatima.
He said, “These hoodlums came to our house and they were shooting sporadically. The male members of the households were in the mosque and they couldn’t suspect anything untoward. It was after they carried out their evil act that we discovered that five female members of the household were missing. We alerted the security agents immediately and I must commend them for their swift response.
“The combined team of Police, Civil Defence, Amotekun and others trailed the assailants but could not track them. The Area Commander also showed up, but we learnt they (kidnappers) did not follow their usual exit route in Osin in Kwara. We learnt they must have mingled with the people of the community to conceal their identities.
“I learnt they only called once to demand N100million ransom and since then, nothing has been heard from them again. We are using this medium to appeal to the government to come to our rescue. We don’t even know what to do again. One of the victims is carrying a nine-month-old pregnancy; you can imagine the kind of trauma she will be going through now. It is indeed a painful experience for the family
“This was a strange incident, because we have never experienced such in this community. We have lived here for more than 70 years in this community, even though we are from Kwara State. We don’t know any other place besides Erinmope.”
He explained that all the abductees were female, including a pregnant woman and a nursing mother.
Mahmud therefore appealed to the state and local governments to come to the aid of the family in order to secure the release of the captives, lamenting that there was no way the family could raise such a sum for ransom.
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