Nigerian Police Crack Kidnap Gangs in Kogi

By Dele Ogbodo in  Abuja
 

The Nigeria Police Intelligence Response Team (PIRT), yesterday, said it cracked two notorious kidnap gangs that had been terrorising Kogi State and its environs in the last few weeks.

 Also, the team said four kidnapped victims at different locations in the State were rescued.

 In a statement signed by its Spokesman, DCP Donald Awunah, in Abuja, he attributed the feat to the intelligence operation conducted by the operatives of the IGP’s Monitoring Unit at different black spots in Kogi State.

 Awunah, said three members of a notorious kidnap gang that had for a while operated in major cities in Kogi and neighbouring States were trailed and arrested at their hideouts in the outskirt of Egume and Anyimgba towns in the state.

He gave their names as: Ojonimi Negedu, male and aged 32, Awodi Ezekiel, aged 26, and Micheal Sule, aged 21.

 The statement said: “The leader of the gang who gave his name as Ibrahim Nasarawa led the operatives of IRT to their den where Edward Abutu Amedu was held hostage.

 “On sighting the  Operatives, the armed guards who were stationed by the gang to keep watch over their victims opened fire on the Police and the operatives responded and overpowered them in a tactical operation that saw three members of the kidnap gang  suffer fatal injuries while their victim was rescued unhurt.

 “Two of our men sustained gunshot injuries and are currently responding to treatment in the hospital while the other members of the gang escaped with bullet wounds.”

In another coordinated operation, it said that three members of another dare-devil kidnap gang that abducted Mrs. Mayo Ohemi, Nichodemus Kadiri and Miss Victoria Abdul, from Acharu Egume area of Kogi State, were arrested and their confession led to the rescue of the victims who were incarcerated in the kidnapers’ camp.

 The gang, the statement added, demanded a ransom of N20 million from their victims. The rescued victims who sustained various degrees of injuries in the hands of their abductors are now receiving treatment in the Hospital.