18th September, 2012
The Lagos State Police Command today paraded three suspected kidnappers who allegedly held captive a cousin of business mogul, Alhaji Aliko Dangote. The name of the victim was given as Yahaya Aminu.
The three suspected kidnappers paraded are: Pius Ubaka Livinus, 25, who allegedly kidnapped an Indian national in 2010 and also kidnapped a Dangote worker in February this year; Kenechukwu Onyema, 27, and Segun Ayebe, 32, who was arrested while collecting $40,000 ransom at Ajah, Lagos.
The three suspects were arrested by men of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, recently during a well coordinated search for the gang members.
SARS sources told P.M.NEWS that the gallantry of one of their men, Corporal Abdulrahaman Mohammed, led to the arrest of the suspects.
The corporal was said to have trailed Ubaka Livinus to a roof top at Ajao Estate.
When SARS men arrested the suspects, a KIA Serato car was recovered from them. Their captive was also released.
The suspects, during interrogation, allegedly confessed to SARS men that they committed the crime.
In his confessional statement, Ubaka the son of a dismissed Inspector of Police, Livinus Afone, who was said to have been serving in Force Headquarters, Obalende, said his arrest was the second in recent times. He stated that he participated in three of the gang’s operations.
He confessed that he had wanted to quit kidnapping in February this year when his attempt to kidnap a staff of Dangote company was foiled.
He added that he was nabbed when he attempted to collect a $32 million ransom from relatives of his victim.
Ubaka, who is from Abia State, southeast Nigeria, said he went back into kidnapping because his share of $40,000 (N5.5 million) out of $200,000 collected from an earlier operation was used to buy two plots of land at Lekki Free Trade zone for N2.5 million and he was defrauded when he attempted to obtain a visa to Portugal after he paid N850,000 to a fraudster.
He said when he was arraigned before a Lagos magistrate’s court for an earlier crime, he was admitted to bail in the sum of N100,000 with two sureties each in like sum.
Ubaka added that his Infinity SUV was given out as collateral to his counsel, Barrister Evans Duru who applied for his bail before the court.
That was how he blew the $40,000 share he got from the first operation in 2010.
In his confession, the second suspect, Segun Ayebe, from Delta State, southsouth Nigeria, said he joined the gang during their third kidnap operation because he had just returned from a heart surgery in India and needed money.
SARS officials said the three suspects will soon be arraigned in court at the completion of investigation.
—Cyriacus Izuekwe, Ayodeji Dedeigbo & Daniel Ogunjobi