The FCT Police Command has paraded a university student and 30 other suspected kidnappers including 26 of them said to be operating along Kuje, Rubochi, Kwali and Abaji axis.
The axis has recorded several cases of kidnapping in recent times leading the command to create new divisions in the areas and also launch a Special Joint Counter Kidnapping Operation with other security agencies.
Parading the suspects yesterday, the Commissioner of Police for FCT, Bala Ciroma, said exhibits recovered from the 26 suspects, who are members of different kidnap syndicates, included four locally fabricated firearms, one Dane gun with 10-round cylinder loader, four cartridges, three cutlasses, three face masks and 24 wraps of dried leaves suspected to be marijuana.
The five other kidnap suspects paraded included one Ismail Tijjani, said to be a student of University of Abuja. He was arrested, according to the CP, by police operatives attached to Abaji division for allegedly conniving with four others, all aged 23-25, and threatening to kidnap their victim.
The police said the suspects demanded N500,000 from their victim, telling him that he should pay the money or have his wife kidnapped. They allegedly told the man that should they kidnap his wife, he would have to cough out N10 million as ransom.
The man was said to have told them he only had N33,000, which they asked him to send to them leading to their arrest.
Also, the CP paraded one Ciroma Maina, 20, said to have been arrested as a member of a suspected rape syndicate.
“The suspects confessed that they used to intercept unsuspecting victims and forcefully have carnal knowledge of them at night. Efforts are being intensified to arrest Lawal Gimidi, Jibrin Gimidi, Ibrahim Gimidi and Godo Gimidi, all members of the syndicate who are still at large,” the CP added.
He also paraded one Demi Ejegi, 65, who was allegedly caught in the act of defiling a three-year-old child.
“The suspected paedophile stated that they were sharing a meal together when the urge to violate the victim came over him,” the CP said.
However, Ejegi denied having intercourse with the child, blaming his arrest on the mother of the child, who he said had been having issues with him in the compound they reside.
Ejegi, an indigene of Warri in Delta State, said he only invited the 3-year-old girl to his room to eat because the girl was complaining of hunger. He added that it was when he was trying to pull the child away from his bed for her to go and wash her hand that the child’s mother walked in on them and accused him of raping her daughter.
Other suspects paraded include two suspected car thieves, five suspected one-chance fraudsters and two suspected impersonators, along with 10 vehicles, some of which were said to have been snatched from their owners.
