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By Akinwande Soji-Ojo
Three suspected kidnappers, identified as Bashiru, also known as Maku-Maku; 27-year-old Babuga; and 30-year-old Mohammed, who are all members of the syndicate terrorising commuters on Lagos-Ibadan expressway have been paraded by the Oyo State Police Command.
The suspects were arrested after they struck at Onigaari axis of the expressway on January 7. During the attack, they killed a commercial driver, shot a passenger and kidnapped four persons.
Parading the suspects on Thursday, the Commissioner of Police, Ngozi Onadeko, said after the incident, the command, apart from sending operatives into the forest surrounding the area to comb it for the rescue of the victims, swiftly deployed intelligence to fish out the perpetrators.
This, she said, led to Bashiru’s arrest, adding that during interrogation, he mentioned Babuga, Bellel, Ibrahim, Buyo, Habu Kosoko, Danliti and one with the appellation ‘On Top,’ currently at large, as members with whom he carried out kidnapping.
Bashiru also confessed that on January 6, at about 8pm, he used his motorcycle to convey Bellel and Ibrahim into the bush at Onigaari before striking the following day.
He added that his role is to supply food and hard drugs to the gang members whenever they were in the forest.
The police commissioner explained that preliminary investigation showed that the arrested suspects had knowledge of the January 7 kidnap operations, while the forensic analysis of their phone numbers linked them with the crime.
Two of the victims, Opaleye Folahan and Sekinat Tiamiyu, were said to have identified the suspects as part of those who kidnapped them.
Folahan, who narrated his experience to journalists, said he was coming from Lagos with his pregnant wife and daughter when the kidnappers emerged at about 8pm and shot him in the neck.
He stated that they initially took him, his wife and daughter into the bush, but shortly after, set the wife and daughter free, in order to facilitate quick payment of ransom. He revealed that he paid N2.75 million as ransom before he was released.
Also paraded were another six kidnap suspects who were arrested around 2am in a brothel at Akinyele area of Ibadan on January 11.
They were arrested through intelligence-driven surveillance by operatives of th Anti-Kidnapping Squad (AKS) in the state, led by CSP Olawale Tiamiyu.
The six suspects- Adamu, Umaru, Sanda, Abubakar, Haruna and Aliyu- were among inmates who escaped from Abolongo Correctional Centre on October 23, 2021.
The third kidnap syndicate members also operating along Ibadan-Lagos expressway who were arrested included Aliyu, Isiaka and Tambaya.