A suspected kidnapper, arrested by security operatives in Edo State, has confessed that he was apprehended at a food vendor’s shop while buying food for their victim.
The 35-year-old suspect, James Melayi, while speaking to journalists during his public parade by the Edo State Police Command, said: “My friend Godwin brought the job, and my motor is bad; I needed money to fix it.
“We went to Ikara Primary School, Ologbo community, near Benin City, and met her teaching; we waited. As she was going home, we waylaid her with a double barrel and two cut-to-size guns.
“Thereafter, we trekked through a bush path to Ologbo River and used a boat to carry her to a hideout and started demanding N5 million ransom from her parents.
“About 8 o’clock at night, soldiers and vigilantes arrested me when I came out to buy food.
“They asked me to call and tell my guys to release the woman. I called them, they freed the woman without collecting ransom.
“I am regretting ever coming out of the bush to buy food for our victim; my other gang members are not facing the law right now,” the suspect lamented.
According to the police, the suspect allegedly conspired with two others now at large to kidnap the female teacher, one Lillian Ofonsare, at Ikara Primary School, Ologbo Community, near Benin on October 18, 2023.
“On 18/10/2023, at about 1200hrs, the Operatives of the Anti-Kidnapping and Cyber Crime Unit, while responding to a distress call that one Lillian Ofonsare ‘F’, a school teacher, was kidnapped from the classroom when teaching her students at Ikara Primary School, Ologbo, Benin City by hoodlums who emerged from the bush and took the victim to an unknown place.
“The operatives, while using credible intelligence, arrested one of the kidnappers, James Melayi ‘M’, age 35 years. He made a statement and confessed to the crime,” police spokesman in Edo, SP Chidi Nwabuzor said.