Gist of the day

 

Stephen Odion and Stephen Akhere, twins, 26, have been arrested by the Edo State Police Command for alleged kidnapping. The suspects, alongside one Stephen Ehikioya, 33, suspected to be the elder brother to the twins, allegedly ambushed one Alfred Ehikioya along Era-Ekpoma Road, shot him in the leg and kept him in a forest for four days. The abductors then released the victim after receiving a ransom of N500, 000 from his relatives.

The state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Samuel Adegbuyi, who paraded the brothers in Benin, alongside other suspects arrested for various criminal offences, said the suspected kidnappers and others at large had earlier abducted a priest, who was later released after payment of N1m ransom.

The CP said, “After their arrest, investigation revealed that the suspects had on January 11, 2015, attempted to kidnap one Inegbedion Peter, ACP (retd) whom, while escaping from their attack, sustained a gunshot injury on his hands.”

One of the twins, Akhere, explained that he was lured into the crime by another man whom he could not identify.

“Since I was born, I couldn’t afford to go to school. I was working as a labourer at Ugba when a man deceived me into the act.

“When I got home, I told my brother about it; I told him that we would do it only once and stop. In our first attempt, we were successful and got some money from it.

“We were four in the group and we got N1m in total as ransom. But my brother and I got N500, 000 and bought a vehicle with the money.

“It was in our second attempt that we were caught in a farm. The double-barrel gun we used was given to us by someone who got it from his father. But we couldn’t find him when we went to return it,” he said.

Investigations are still ongoing.