The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has unveiled the suspects who tried to kidnap Nigerian billionaire, Femi Otedola.
The police said in a statement signed by its spokesperson Don N. Awunah on Wednesday, November 16 that the trio of Ikechukwu Daniel, Adeyemi Kayode and Ayodele Temitayo were arrested by IGP’s Intelligence Response Team (IRT) on the 23rd of June, 2016.
According to him, the arrest was achieved through “coordinated intelligence gathering and deployment of technical investigative tools that spanned several weeks”.
Daniel, the principal suspect, is a 28-year-old indigene of Imo state who was rusticated from Ahmadu Bello University Zaria due to his cult related activities on campus in 2009/2010. He was the IT guru of the kidnap gang due to his mastery of Computer applications.
The police said 29-year-old Kayode is a serving officer of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence corps and a native of Ojoo in Ibadan, Oyo state. He serves as a Personal Assistant to the Commandant, NSCDC Oyo State Command who took undue advantage of his office to obtain the GSM number and location of their would-be victim (Femi Otedola).
Kayode was the person that brought up the idea and plan on how to kidnap the business magnate to make a demand of one billion naira ransom.
The third suspect, Temitayo is a native of Oyo in Ibadan, Oyo state and was the marksman and armourer of the gang. He claimed to have been dismissed from 213 Battalion Maiduguri of Nigerian Army as a Private in 2015.
The police said all the suspects made confessional statements revealing that they had successfully carried out several high profile kidnappings and two AK47 rifles loaded with live ammunition were recovered from them while efforts are ongoing to apprehend other members of the gang and extend investigation to their other criminal enterprise.