A National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member’s mother has revealed that she paid an N6 million ransom to secure her son’s release.
On October 1, two busses heading from Ibadan, Oyo State, to the South East and Sputh South states were attacked by gunmen, leading to the kidnapping of prospective corps members. The assault happened in Imo State near the Owerri-Onitsha expressway.
At first, the kidnappers demanded N50 million for each of the 19 corps members who had been kidnaped, totaling N950 million in ransom.
In an interview with News Central Television on Wednesday, October 7, following the corps members’ release, the mother of one of them stated that the abductors first demanded N50 million for each victim before agreeing to N6 million for her son.
“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.”
According to the mother, in order to make arrangements for the ransom payment, the abductors requested that the victims’ families send delegates to meet them in Ibadan.
“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 claimed that one of the people who met the kidnappers and brought the ransom was her older son.