Yusuf Bakare
A young lady, Medinat Ibrahim, 24years old has narrated a pathetic story of how her step mother and her father frustrated her into arranging for her own kidnap to source funds to offset her liability.
Medinat, a native of Ago Are in Oyo State while speaking with the press gave an emotional account of the trauma suffered in the home as a result of maltreatment from her step mother, who was married after the death of her mother.
She explained that she lacked fatherly care despite that her father loved her very well and this sparked the anger and jealousy of the step mother, who maltreated her, starved her and made her pass through untold hardship.
“Whenever we have issues, she would lock up the store, starve me and close up access to source of food. I made up my mind that I will not go into adultery to feed, so I left the house and go job with a private nursery school where I was managing with N16,000 salary.
“I therefrom entered into a contribution and I collected my share at the early stage. Unfortunately COVID -19 lockdown came in, salaries stopped and I had problems paying up my contribution dues. As a result, I thought about using the self kidnap as a way to get money from my father so as to meet up my indebtedness.
“When I told my elder sister who is from same mother but different father, Amudalat Wahab about my plans of getting money from my father, she was skeptical about it but I told her that I have no other alternatives. I told her to call my father and tell him that his daughter had been kidnapped, then I called a childhood friend of mine, Lekan Ahmed, that I need his account to get money from somewhere for my feeding and he oblighed me.
Speaking on his level of involvement, Lekan Ahmed said he was not aware of the kidnap plans but corroborated what medina said about giving her his account number and he did.
“Medinat called me to ask for my account number. I asked why she didn’t use her account and she explained that her number had been dormant so I oblighed her. She said she was expecting five thousand naira feeding money but to my surprise, I saw alert of fifty thousand at first and another fifty thousand naira. Then I became apprehensive and called Medinat, then she promised to see me and explain what the money is all about.
“She later said that her sister would come for the money but I insisted that until she explained what the money is all about, I will not release the money. It was the second day when she came to collect the money that I was arrested as an accomplice”
Giving his account of the faked kidnap conspiracy, the Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, SP Ajayi Okasanmi, narrating the facts in the matter, he said: “ On 2nd January, 2021, at about 1750hrs, an information was received from one Nurudeen Solagberu ‘m’ of Oko-Olowo area Ilorin through the Command’s emergency telephone line to the effect that, one Ibrahim Medinat ‘f’ of Olude Oke-Fomo area Ilorin was kidnapped by unknown persons on the strength of the information, the complainant was directed to make a formal report at Oloje Police Division that has jurisdiction over the area.
He highlighted that preliminary investigation revealed a conspiracy theory, hence the Commissioner of Police Cp. Mohammed Lawal Bagega, psc, directed the newly constituted state anti-kidnapping to take over the investigation which revealed that one Medinat Ibrahim ‘f’ conspired with one Amudalat Wahab ‘f’ her sister to arrange her kidnap and a GTB bank account No. 0116404467 belonging to one Hammed Lekan ‘m’ was used to cash the ransom of Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (₦250,000.00) from the father of Medinat Ibrahim.
He also stated that the suspect confessed that she needed money for a purpose which was the reason she devised the fake kidnap adding that all the suspects have been arrested, exhibit recovered and case under investigation.
Okasanmi reiterated the CPs stand that should pack their loads and relocate from Kwara as the command will stop at nothing to deal with any criminal arrested no matter how highly or lowly placed.
He said that further investigation would be conducted into the matter and prosecution would be carried out in due course.
