By Moses Omorogieva
“I kidnapped my Oga’s son because he refused to settle me,’’ a 20-year-old suspect, Emmanuel Blessing, told our correspondent in Lagos on Monday.
The suspect made the confession on the sidelines of a briefing by the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, Mr Fatai Owoseni, on criminal activities in the state.
The suspect admitted being the mastermind of the alleged abduction of his boss’s son.
Emmanuel, who claimed to be a trader at the Mandilas market, Lagos Island, was arrested along with one other, while on their way to collect a N5 million ransom demanded for the release of their victim.
The suspect claimed that he singlehandedly abducted the 10-year-old boy at Alafia area of Orile-Iganmu, on his way to school, as a way of paying his master back for refusing to settle him, after working for him for four years.
“I started staying with my Oga since 2013. He took me from my parents to stay with him so that I can learn how to sell clothes. In the agreement he had with my parents before he took me, he promised to settle me after four years.
“He started to count my apprenticeship from 2014. In 2016, when he was supposed to settle me, instead he opened another shop and asked me to be paying him N20, 000 monthly.
“I could not cope because of the recession in the country, so I asked him to settle me as agreed but he refused. Rather, he sent me back to the village.
“I came back early January and I stayed in a hotel. It was then that the idea of how to kidnap his son came to me. Last week Monday, around 7.30 a.m., I stayed along the route where his son normally passed to school at the Alafia area of orile.
“The boy emerged around 7.45 a.m. He came to me when I called him and I took him away,” the suspect confessed.
The suspect further explained that he kept the young boy in his hotel room for four days, until he was arrested around Apapa Road.
“Throughout the four days, the boy stayed with me in my hotel room at Oyingbo. I called my Oga on phone the next day to pay N5 million into my account, if he hoped to see his son again. I sent him my account number.
“I was on my way to collect my ATM card from the bank along Apapa Road when I was arrested. I never knew that the police was on my trail,” he added.
The Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, while briefing newsmen on the arrest, said that the suspect, along with one other, kidnapped the 10-year old boy.
He said after kidnapping their victim, the suspects demanded for N5 million as ransom for the release of the boy.
– NAN
