'How Evans lured us into his kidnap gang' - Members

The gang members, Suoyo Paul, a 42-year-old Bayelsa State-born ex-militant, confessed to be the armourer of the gang who supplied most of the guns and ammunitions used by the gang while Chukwuemeka Ikenna Bosah, a 32-year-old, said he was led into the gang because he needed money for his wife who needed to undergo a Caesarian Section operation.

Another key member of the gang, Chukwumah Nwosu, a 42-year-old indigene of Aba, Abia State, Evans allegedly lured him back from his base in Vietnam to join the gang which was responsible for many high profile abductions where millions of dollars were collected from victims with Evans living in great affluence with mansions in highbrow Magodo Phase II GRA in Lagos, and two other mansions in Ghana.

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First to speak was Suoyo Paul:

"I am an ex-militant under the Amnesty Programme put in place by the Federal Government when Evans contacted me to supply his gang with guns and ammunitions.

I am from Bayelsa State. I was being paid N65,000 monthly for the amnesty they granted me but my master used to deduct N10,000 from it every month.

I then went into sea diving job for which I was paid sums ranging from N50,000 to N500,000 for items recovered. But while working as divers, all of us were still in the militant camps at Bayelsa, Calabar, and Delta.

At times, we would break pipelines or kidnap oil workers, especially foreigners working with oil companies, and they used to pay ransom fast.

It was my master, the late who owned the camp and the guns we used for militancy. We got annoyed with the oil companies because they did not care to employ indigenes of the states or develop the areas.

The amnesty was granted us in 2009, during the late President Yar'adua’s regime. In 2010, I met Evans because he used to come to the camp to collect guns from my master, Soboma.

He would come to the militants’ camp with Barrister Yellow to meet Soboma. I do not have Evans’ phone number and he does not have my number too.

I was surprised when Evans later called me. He asked me about my children and I told him that my master had been killed.

He asked me to text the number of the gang’s second in command identified as . He said he would like to see us in Lagos. He sent N30,000 for our journey to Lagos.

When we alighted at Cele Bus Stop at Ijesha (Lagos), one elderly man came and took us to one hotel at Iyana Ejigbo area. We stayed there for two weeks without seeing Evans.

I did not go for any kidnapping with Evans. I only supplied him guns. It was the number he used to call me that the police traced and arrested me.”

Chukwuemeka Ikenna Bosah

Bosah confessed that he decided to join the gang when things became difficult for him and he could not raise the amount needed for his wife to undergo an operation when she was pregnant with their third child.

Explaining his involvement with the gang, Bosah said:

“I used to manage a restaurant at No. 9, Yakoyo Road, Sabu, which is in Ogun State. I later traveled to Ghana to engage in 419 business (obtaining by false pretense).

While in Ghana, luck smiled on me one day and I hit $43,000. I rented a shop for my wife and also rented a house where I lived with my family which included two sets of twins. I also opened a bigger restaurant than the one I ran in Nigeria.

I was doing well until six months later when the owner of the building where I resided gave me a quit notice, claiming that I paid the rent to the wrong person. The matter affected my business so badly that I decided to relocate to Nigeria.

When I returned to Nigeria, I started doing Internet fraud to survive. I told a white woman who was desperate to marry a black man that I would marry her, and she started taking care of me.

She was sending me a lot of money until some enemies of progress called her and told her that I was married with a set of twins. She cut off the relationship.

Unfortunately for me, I was penniless at the time she cut off the relationship. The worst happened when my pregnant wife went for ante-natal care and the doctor told her that the only safe way she could be delivered of the baby was a Cesarean Section operation because the baby was inside the Fallopian tube.

When I narrated my plight to my friend, Nwosu, he told me that there was a friend of his who had just returned from abroad. He assured me that he would talk to the man to help me with money for the operation my wife intended to undergo. That was at Cele Bus Stop (Lagos).

We entered a Keke (commercial tricycle) to Jakande Estate. There, we met Evans who came in a Lexus SUV. This was around the year 2015.

Evans told us to enter his car and I saw some men with fez caps. I also saw one of them in the back seat give a gun to another one in the front seat with Evans.

Before I knew it, the driver used the Lexus SUV to block a car and they ordered the big man in the car to come down at gun point. When the man came out, he fainted.

Evans then ordered Nwosu and I to carry the big man and put him inside his (Evans’) vehicle and they zoomed off.

While we were putting the man inside Evans’ vehicle, Nwosu stole his gold ring. He later gave it to me to sell in order to solve my wife’s problem. I sold the ring for N60,000 and used the money to settle the bill for the operation.

When Evans discovered that we stole the victim’s ring, he became angry with me. He gave Nwosu the sum of N1.5 million to give to me as my share of the ransom, but Nwosu deducted N50,000 from it.”

For Nwosu, he had traveled to Vietnam to hustle when his business collapsed in Nigeria and it was Evans whom he knew before he traveled called on him to come back to Nigeria to join the gang.

“I am a native of Aba, Abia State. I traded in female wears and accessories like bags and shoes before I met Evans in 2014 at Domino’s Pizza, Apo Junction, Festac Town, Lagos, while he selling fuel and engine oil in the black market at Alafia.

I later went to Yaba to sell shoes. I traveled to Vietnam for two years. When I came back in January 2015, I met Evans again. We discussed drug trafficking business and I told him how I lost all my money to drug business.

He then promised to sponsor me on drug trafficking trip, but he said I should give him some time.

The next day, Evans called me and when I met him, he told me to enter his car but I did not know that we were going for a kidnap operation.

I only realized when the vehicle blocked a man and Evans and the others got out, pulled the man out of his car, and drove away with him.

When we and the other people in the car had passed Second Rainbow Junction, Evans told me to join another car that was following his SUV.

On getting to Villa Park area, they doubled crossed another vehicle and took a man from it and we left. On getting to Cele Bus Stop, Evans asked , the driver of the other car, to drop me.

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He gave each of us N1.5 million. Unfortunately, the person I gave the money to help me procure a South Korea visa embezzled it. I later gave money to one agent and he also bolted with it. I was later arrested.

I am married with three children. My problem now is that I gave my wife only N3,000 before I went to Abuja. I don’t know how they are managing to eat now. Tell the police that we have repented and should be given a second chance.”