A mother of one of the freed prospective National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members has said her family paid N6 million to secure her son’s release from his abductors.
The prospective corps members were kidnapped on October 1 after gunmen attacked two 18-seater buses travelling from Ibadan, Oyo State, along the Owerri-Onitsha expressway.
Speaking in Yoruba during an interview with News Central Television on Wednesday, the woman said the kidnappers first demanded N50 million per 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.
She added that the abductors later reduced the demand to N15 million, but the family said it could only raise N5.5 million.
“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,” she said.
According to her, the kidnappers asked the parents of the victims to send representatives to meet them in Ibadan to arrange the payment.
“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,” she said.
She said that at the meeting point, the representatives were told to transfer the money to an account and, on getting to Imo State, convert the funds to dollars.
The woman said her elder son was among those who delivered the ransom and later called the family to confirm that the kidnappers had freed his brother.
“It is not rumours. They have all been released and sent to us. His brother is among the people who went to meet with the abductors three days ago. They left with the ransom. It was the brother who called us this evening to say that they had handed the ransom to the kidnappers and that they had released our son. We also spoke to the boy,” she said.
The mother, whose name was not disclosed, said the ordeal left her traumatised and sleepless while her son was in captivity.
“Since he was kidnapped, I have been stooling. I couldn’t sleep either. But I was relieved when I heard they had been released. It was as though the chains all over me were loosened,” she said.
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