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| The suspected kidnappers |
The Plateau State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Dipo Ayeni, said the kidnappers felt the amount meant little or nothing to Mikel and his premier league club.
Ayeni, who said the two soldiers who masterminded the abduction of the elder Obi had been arrested, spoke in Jos, the Plateau State capital, while handing over the rescued man to his family.
Ayeni said, “Mr. (Michael) Obi was drugged by the kidnappers immediately they got to Kano. He lost consciousness and he did not know where he was again. In the morning of August 6, Obi woke up and found himself sleeping on a small foam. At this point, one Mr. Ifeanyi Hyacinth asked him to give them $4bn, which they described as chicken change to Mikel and his club, Chelsea.
“For five days, he was not allowed to talk to any member of his family. However, on the fifth day, he was allowed to speak to his son, Tony. He was told to tell Tony that he had been moved to Lagos and that he had been shot in the leg and that the leg had started getting rotten. For 12 days, he was under pressure and torture to get them $4bn.”
The CP said two soldiers attached to the Special Military Task Force in Jos, masterminded the kidnap.
The two soldiers, Sgt. Victor Essien with service no. 96NA/43/11213, and Pte Jaduwa Thloma with number 03NA/54/5527, are among the nine suspects the police said had been arrested.
The seven others are two women and five men. Among the kidnappers was a Nigerien.
Ayeni and Mikel’s father also narrated how the abduction took place. Ayeni said, “On August 5, 2011 at about 6 pm when the old man was returning from office in his car, about five military personnel in an army colour Hilux Pick-Up Van blocked his vehicle near the SSS (State Security Service) building on the way to Air Force Base (in Rayfield). He was ordered by the military personnel to get out of his vehicle and told that the officer in charge of their formation wanted him at their headquarters. Thereafter, he was pushed inside their vehicle and driven through Air Force Road to an unknown destination in the Rayfield area in Jos.
“Earlier the old man was given a brutal beating such that he could not stand on his feet again and they asked him twice whether he could give them N10m and he said ‘yes’. Thereafter he was taken from the military vehicle into a flashy vehicle that came there to join them at that unknown destination. He was among four persons, two in the front and two at the back seat. From there he was driven to Kano in ‘an unimaginable’ speed and his head was bowed down throughout the journey.”
Obi also said, “I was driven to Kano in a speed that is like that of an aeroplane. In fact, I have not seen such speed, and the car at a point nearly somersaulted. When I asked them to take it easy, they beat me and ask me to put my head down.
“I am lost for words and can only give thanks to the almighty God because as the men were discussing among themselves what to do, if they had just squeezed the trigger, that would have been the end. I would have also suffocated because I was pushed into the car and the glasses wound up,”
The CP said that the abductors got to Kano by 9 pm and immediately drugged their victim.
Ayeni said the operation that led to the rescue commenced on Monday, August 22, when police detectives, led by CSP Ochowechi Salifu, from the Plateau State Police Command, stormed the house at Kabuga, BUK Road, Kano where Obi was being kept by the criminals that kidnapped him.
Obi described the security agents involved in his rescue as “actors.” “The operation was like what I had watched in a movie,” he said.
He also stressed that no ransom was paid for his release.
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