Two Kidnappers Arrested In Onitsha Today

Operatives of Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, Anambra State Police Command yesterday on a tip-off, swooped on kidnappers' hideout at the GRA area of the commercial city of Onitsha and arrested two kidnap suspects (male and female).

The arrests, according to sources, were made following the escape of one of the kidnap victims from the hideout, earlier in the day.

According to the source, the victim whose identity was yet to be ascertained, as at the time of filing this report yesterday, had been abducted by the suspects somewhere in Abagana, Njikoka Local Government Area of the state, late last week and brought into the hideout at Justice Onwuamaegbu Close, GRA and kept incommunicado for a ransom negotiation.

Sources even had it that both the kidnappers and the victim's relations had settled for a ransom of N3 million and the kidnappers were already threatening to kill the victim if at the end of yesterday, the ransom had not reached them.

The source hinted that the three suspects, a male and two females had been operating on the hideout for more than two years now, without the neighborhood knowing what was going on in the area, to the extent that a lawyer managing the property wrote a sign post: "To Let. Contact me on certain phone number". But the kidnappers allegedly mutilated the first and last numbers in the lawyer's phone number, so that callers would find it difficult to get the correct number of the lawyer.

It was gathered that the incident was blown open when the male suspect whose name was given as Emma Ugochukwu who incidentally is the secretary of GRA Unit of commercial motorcycle union was going out and he instructed the female suspect to keep eyes on the victim with a pistol till he comes back.

It was gathered that as soon as Ugochukwu went out, the victim requested the female suspect to find him water to drink and as she went for the drinking water, the victim cleverly untied the rope on his hands, removed the handcuff on his legs and waited for the female suspect to come in.

It was further gathered that when the female suspect came in, the victim, hiding the handcuff on his back, smashed it on the head of the female victim and when she collapsed, he scaled the fence of the compound and escaped into the nearby Nkisi River.

Few hours later, the victim returned to the hideout with SARS operatives and arrested the male and female suspects, while the second female suspect was no where to be found.

Some of the neighborhood, Chief Godwin Okeke, Chairman/CEO of GUO Transport Limited, expressed shock that he had been living in the same Onwuamaegbu Crescent with some dangerous kidnappers, adding that the authorities concerned should investigate the matter properly.

Okeke confirmed that the owner of the compound now converted to kidnappers' hideout, is currently residing in oversea country and probably kept the male suspect to look after the compound, pending when he would return from oversea or pending when his lawyer would find a tenant to occupy the bungalow.

Okeke suspected that the kidnappers might have converted the bungalow into a hideout for over two years now because some operatives came to his own residence some two years ago with a tracking device and was looking for that particular hideout and they ended up suggesting that the hideout could be across the Nkisi River, not knowing that it was just within the same street.

 When newsmen visited the hideout, yesterday, the main bungalow was under lock and key, while the boys' quarter where the kidnappers operated from were wide open, with traces of house hold properties believed to have been set ablaze by the SARS operatives during the arrest of the occupants.

The Chairman of GRA Unit of Commercial Motorcycle Union, Samuel Chukwu, expressed surprise that their Secretary could be linked to the dastardly act of kidnapping, adding that he has been with him for the past nine years and had never found him wanting all through the period.

Chukwu who noted that he had never seen Ugochukwu since his arrest, however urged security agencies to investigate the matter properly and allow natural justice to take its course.

The Police Area Commander for Onitsha, Mr. Banjamin Wordu, an Assistant Commissioner of Police, ACP, was not readily available in his office when newsmen visited but the State Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Emeka Chukwuemeka, DSP, confirmed the arrests, adding that the outcome of the on-going police investigations would determine the next line of action.