Why we demanded ransom after victim’s death – kidnap suspect

Why we demanded ransom after victim’s death – kidnap suspect

A kidnap suspect, Akinmola Oyekanmi, arrested by the Ondo state security outfit, codenamed, Amotekun, has narrated why he and his gang still demanded ransom from the family of their dead victim.

Akinmola, who was paraded alongside other suspected criminals terrorizing the people of the state, said the victim died in their custody while negotiations were on with his family members.

The suspect and three other members of his gang have abducted their victim who was travelling from the Mower area in the Ogun state to Ondo state.

According to him” It is a pity that the gun with one of my gang members accidentally discharged and killed the victim.

“We saw the victim coming and four of us decided to kidnap him.

“While we were dragging and forcing him to cooperate with us, the gun with one of us misfired and hit our victim which killed him immediately.

“Having realized that he was dead and since he had given us a contact number, we went ahead to demand ransom from the family.

” We didn’t want to lose out completely since he gave us the contact number of his family members to discuss the payment of the ransom with.

” We kept negotiating with the members and they were not forthcoming with our demands.

” They insisted on talking with the victim before the payment of the ransom. I think they were suspicious that he might have died in our custody. But we lied to them that there was no network where he was kept and that we traveled to where there was the network to talk with them.

“But while we were still negotiating the people around where we were in Okitipupa became suspicious of what was going on, they must have informed the Amotekun people who later swooped on us.

“My other gang members ran away and I was apprehended by the Amotekun personnel.

The suspect who claimed to be a farmer confessed that “I have done two successful kidnap operations and this was my third and nobody wanted to kill the victim but the gun accidentally discharged itself and led to his death.

Speaking on the arrest, the Commander of the Amotekun Corps, Chief Adetunji Adeleye, said the suspect was arrested following intelligence report after killing their victim while other members of the gang ran away from the scene.

According to him “the kidnappers abducted the victim and was, however, shot dead while negotiations were still ongoing between the family and the members of the syndicate, but failed to reveal to the family that the victim has died.

Adeleye said his men around Okitipupa who noticed their movement swooped on them and discovered the corpse of the victim, and apprehended Oyekanmi while others took to their heels.