I Wanted To Kidnap Femi Otedola for N500 Million Ransom

Operatives of the Inspector-General of Police, IGP, Special Intelligence Response Team, IRT, have arrested the mastermind of Senator Iyabo Anisulowo’s kidnap.

The Senator was kidnapped in April with one of her security aides in Ogun State and regained freedom 10 days after being held in captivity by her abductors.The suspect,

Ikechukwu Daniel, 28, suspected to be a member of a notorious kidnapping gang terrorizing the South Western part of the country, was arrested four months after the abduction of the former 70-year-old Minister of Education who represented the Ogun West Senatorial District between 2003 and 2007.

The suspect in his startling confessions to the police in Ogun state while being paraded before newsmen on Friday, narrated what took place during the time, Senator Anisulowo was being held by the gang.

Daniel’s arrest came after after one Mohammed Babuga was nabbed by IRT operatives during the week. Babuga was said to have revealed the location of Daniel’s hideout in Festac, Lagos and by the time he was arrested, he was negotiating the N4m ransom of another victim his gang was holding.

The kidnap kingpin said he had perfected plans to kidnap one of Africa’s richest men, billionaire, Femi Otedola.

He said he and his gang planned to kidnap Otedola at a function in Ibadan, Oyo State in November 2015, but called off their attempt due to the presence of security operatives.

Daniel said, “It would have been impossible because the security there was heavy that day. We decided to take our time and prepare well for the operation. Someone working with Otedola brought us the job. The person told us that he was going to be in Ibadan and when we went there, we realised that there was heavy security presence around him. I told my gang members that we had to prepare well for the operation to be successful.

“I told them we needed to do a sacrifice and fortify ourselves spiritually before attempting to kidnap him. Then, we decided that we also needed army, DSS and police uniforms because without impersonation, there was no way we could get him.

“The man who brought the job was supposed to monitor his movements regularly. I already planned that if we abducted him successfully, it would have been my last job because I would have demanded N2bn and maybe we would have negotiated for N500m.”

Recounting how he got involved in crime, Daniel said, “I was arrested in 2012 for hijacking a petroleum tanker truck on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. I speak Hausa fluently. While I was in prison, I realised that inmates were still arranging criminal jobs from the prison and after I was discharged for want of evidence against me, Babuga who was my cellmate, told me the way to make money was for me to join a kidnapping gang.

He said, “Mohammed Babuga had been discharged from prison ahead of me. When I first started, all I was doing was negotiating ransom anytime we kidnapped anybody.

“When we kidnapped the woman (Senator Anisulowo) I was the one who ensured that the woman was not killed because her family refused to pay ransom for her release.”

“The first person we kidnapped was a man whose name I cannot remember. We kept him in a forest in Ilorin, Kwara State and got N5m as ransom. We got N15m in our second job and I got N2m as my share. I used it to buy my first car,” the suspect recalled.