Confusion
OpenLife News reports that confusion has trailed the circumstances surrounding the release of prospective members of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, abducted along the Owerri-Onitsha expressway, after government announced they were rescued, while a parent has now given details of how ransom was paid.
Recall the victims were abducted on October 1 after gunmen attacked two 18-seater buses travelling from Ibadan, Oyo State.
The government had announced that the kidnapped corps members were rescued by security operatives, but a mother of one of the victims has contradicted that claim, revealing that families paid millions in ransom.
The woman, whose name was not disclosed, made the disclosure in an interview with News Central Television on Wednesday.
According to her, she paid N6 million to secure her son’s release after days of negotiation with the abductors.“Initially, they asked us to pay N50 million per head. We asked whether the amount was for all of them, but they insisted that no, it was for each person.
Later, we started begging them to take N500,000. But they said no and started scaring us,” she said in Yoruba.
“Three days ago, they called and said we should pay N15 million. We kept begging them that all we had was N5.5 million.
“They said no and insisted on N6 million. So, it’s that N6 million we paid.”She said the kidnappers contacted all parents of the 20 victims held in the bush and directed them to send representatives to Ibadan for ransom arrangements.
“They called all the parents of all the victims.
“Twenty of them are in the bush. They then asked us to send three persons each to meet with them in Ibadan. My husband and my son’s elder brother went.
“When they got to the meeting place, they asked them to send the money to an account and that when they got to Imo state, they should change the money into dollars,” she narrated.
She added that her elder son was among those who delivered the ransom in person.“It is not rumours. They have all been released and sent to us. His brother is among the people who went to meet with the abductors three days ago.
They left with the ransom.
“It was the brother who called us this evening to say that they had handed the ransom to the kidnappers and that they had released our son. We also spoke to the boy,” she said.
The mother said the abduction left her traumatised.
“Since he was kidnapped, I have been stooling. I couldn’t sleep either. But I was relieved when I heard they had been released. It was as though the chains all over me were loosened,” she said.
The conflicting accounts between the official rescue claim and the parents’ ransom payment narrative have continued to fuel public confusion over the true circumstances of the victims’ freedom.
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