Female undergraduate, others arrested for kidnap in Ebonyi

A final-year female undergraduate student of the Ebonyi State University in Abakaliki (name withheld) and four other suspects have been paraded by the Ebonyi State Police Command for their alleged involvement in the abduction of a businessman, Mr. Monday Oke.

Parading the suspects at the command headquarters in Abakaliki,  the state Police Public Relations Officer, Lovet Odah, identified the female suspect as a student in the Department of Sociology.

Odah disclosed that the gang abducted the victim who is the owner of a popular hotel known as “ Monabis Hotel” located at Nnorum Street in Abakaliki at about 8pm on May 25.

She said, “The suspects after abducting the victim whisked him away to Azugwu town at the outskirts of the capital city Abakaliki, where he was shot at the back and pushed inside a nearby river though he survived the ordeal.

“The suspects were arrested by police operatives  at Nsukka in Enugu State and later transferred to Ebonyi State Police Command”

The PPRO revealed that the kidnappers transferred N5m from the victim’s bank account, using his mobile telephone handset, to their own bank account before pushing him into the river.

Odah, an ASP, said that the state Criminal Investigation Department had commenced full scale investigation into the incident, emphasising that the suspects would be arraigned in court for prosecution .

“It would be recalled that Mr Monday Oke, the owner of a popular hotel known as Monabis Hotel, located in Abakaliki, was two weeks ago abducted at the premises of his hotel around 8pm by the suspects, who took him away to a river, fired gunshot at him before pushing him inside the river apparently to get him drowned in the process,” he said.