A 24-year-old lady identified as Medinat Ibrahim has explained that she faked her own kidnap and demanded N250,000 ransom from her father to raise money to settle a debt.
Medinat, a teacher in Kwara State made the disclosure when she was paraded by the police in the state command for allegedly faking her own kidnap and demanding ransom.
She was paraded alongside two other suspects – Amudalat Wahab (30) and Hammed Lekan (28).
Explaining why she took the action of faking her own kidnap, Medinat narrated that she works in a private school where she gets N15,000 as a monthly wage but the salary was stopped during the COVID-19 lockdown, plunging her into debts in order to survive.
Before then, she had been part of a monthly contribution and when her salary was stopped, she couldn’t meet up with her obligations again but other members of the group were putting pressure on her to pay up.
She narrated further that this led her to hatch the plan of a fake kidnap with her sister in order to raise money through her father whom she said she doesn’t enjoy a smooth relationship with due to the influence of her step-mother.
“I teach in a private school where I was paid N15,000. We organized monthly contribution which I collected and invested in a business, but when COVID-19 broke out, our salary was stopped, I could no longer continue with the contribution.”
“Those who were in the group continued to mount pressure on me to pay up my own contribution and there is nowhere that I could get the money. So I decided to go and hide in my sister’s place and I told someone to call my father on phone that I was kidnapped and demanded a ransom of N250,000 which was paid to my friend’s account,” she said when she was paraded by the police before newsmen.
Speaking during the parade, the Kwara State Commissioner of Police, Muhammed Bagega, said Medinat connived with her elder sister, Amudalat Wahab, and one Hammed Lekan (both of whom have also been arrested) to stage the fake kidnap.
The bank account of Lekan was used to receive the N250,000 ransom.
Meanwhile, a prisoner who escaped from Edo State during the #EndSARS protest, Obehi Ogbeh, has been arrested by men of the Ogun State Police Command in Ifo Local Government Area of the state.
Ogbeh who escaped from the white house prison yard in the state last year was apprehended on Tuesday in the state while wandering about.
The development was disclosed by the spokesperson of the command, DSP Abimbola Oyeyemi, on Wednesday.
