A 41-year-old suspected kidnapper, Abubakar Waheed, has narrated how he used his wife, Yemi Waheed, 36, to abduct children of rich people in Lagos and collect ransom.
Waheed, a native of Ibadan, Oyo State, was arrested by the operatives of the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT).
The father of two, had worked as a commercial motorcycle operator popularly called okada in the Egbeda area of Lagos State, and as car sales representative.
He launched into kidnapping after he became bankrupt.
The suspect, it was gathered, conspired with one of his friends, Oyewale Adisat and his wife Mrs Yemi Waheed to kidnap children of rich men and women.
According to police sources, Oyewale would act as agent for giving out nannies to rich men or women who need nannies desperately.
While Yemi would act as the nanny, her husband Waheed would act as the keeper of the kidnapped child and collector of ransom.
Adisat usually placed notice for nannies at churches, school walls, market places, plazas where big men and women do their shopping.
The moment Yemi is employed as a nanny and placed on monthly stipend she would get the opportunity to find out how rich the man or woman demanding for a nanny is.
She also looked out for expensive valuables including money and jewellery of the victims to steal and send to her gang. Which they would in turn sell.
Yemi also collected ransom on behalf of the gang after helping her husband to kidnap their victims.
Although, she was arraigned and remanded in Kirikiri Prison, she has since been released.
Thinking that the matter was over, Waheed who first ran to Kubua in Abuja to hide, started working with commercial tricycle riders’ task force and later relocated to Lowa area in Ikorodu where he worked as a commercial tricycle operator.
He was subsequently trailed to Ikorodu and arrested.
Waheed said: “We are three-man gang. I, my wife and the agent Oyewale who scouts for nannies. I started suffering when my wife gave birth to a child when I had no kobo on me. When I was thinking on how to pay hospital bill as the doctor refused to discharge my wife, my friend, who I knew in Ibadan, Oyewale Adisat came to my rescue.
‘’When I had my second child in June 2013, the problem of paying hospital bill became worse and I had nobody to run to for help. It was the same Oyewale that assisted me.
‘’In July 2013, he came to me and said my friend, Waheed, I want you and your wife to do me a favour, just one favour. There is a deal we are going to strike. I want your wife to be part of a gang which I want to form. It is a kidnapping gang and it will fetch us big money. It will free you and your family from the teeth of poverty. She will bring the data of the house where she would work as a nanny.
Continuing, Waheed said, “Oyewale had been traveling and coming. He is from Ondo State. My wife gave him all the data of the house she went to work as nanny. They said N1m (one million naira) was paid for their child we kidnapped. The agent gave my wife N18,000 and N3,000 for recharge card.
”They set (sic) my wife and she collected one million naira and gave Oyewale. When Yemi collected the child, she called the parents and told them that the child was missing. She later narrated how the child got missing and ended up convincing them that the child was kidnapped from Shasha area of Lagos.
‘’The IRT operatives struck and arrested my wife. I was in the house when the police came and my wife gave me sign and I ran away. When my friend, the agent heard that police had whisked away my wife, he ran away to unknown place to hide. Even, to date, I don’t know where he ran to or where he is hiding.
‘’I ran to Kubua in Abuja and started working with commercial Tricycle Riders Association Task F orce. From there, I used to get money to feed myself and children. The first child is 13 years old, while the second child is seven years old. I kept them with their grandmother who is my in-law to take care of them.
‘’My wife was later charged to court and sent to Kirikiri prison. I used to send money to her and pray for her for God to hasten her release. I was later told that she had been released and is with my children in her mother’s place. The release of my wife was the thing that sold me out. When I heard that she had been released from prison, I became relieved thinking that the case had died a natural death, and I breathed a sign of freedom and relocated to Lowa area of Ikorodu Lagos. There in Ikorodu, I started doing tricycle riding popularly called Marwa or Keke. I did not know that IRT operatives were still tracking me.’’
