Police arrest woman for hiring hoodlums to kidnap pastor for ransom

Operatives of Ogun State Police Command, have arrested Ibikunle Opeyemi, a female kidnapper for the abduction of one Pastor Mapai Samuel of Zoe Family International Church, Odo-Eran, Abeokuta.

Opeyemi was arrested alongside her colleague Kadiri Jamiu following a distress call received by policemen at the Aregbe divisional headquarters.

In a statement in which Opeyemi and her accomplice’s arrest was disclosed, Ogun Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Abimbola Oyeyemi revealed that the suspects carried out the kidnap operation on

Wednesday, July 13, 2022.

According to the PPRO, the police were briefed that two men dressed in military camouflage accompanied by a woman invaded the church.

Oyeyemi noted that they invaded the church while the pastor was ministering, and forcefully dragged him out of the church and took him to an unknown destination.

“Not quite long after taking the pastor away, the invaders called to demand a certain amount of money as ransom.

“Upon the distress call, the DPO, Aregbe division, CSP Ikechukwu Gabriel, and his detectives embarked on a technical and intelligence-based investigation and discovered that the suspects were hiding somewhere around the Adigbe area of Abeokuta.

“The DPO and his men, in conjunction with men of the Adigbe division, stormed the hideout, where the pastor was rescued and two of the suspects were arrested, while the two men in military camouflage escaped.

“On interrogation, the woman among them claimed to have been in a business relationship with the pastor, and that the pastor cheated her in the course of the business, which made her to contact the three men to kidnap the pastor in order to teach him a lesson,” he added in the statement.

Oyeyemi added that the state Commissioner of Police, Lanre Bankole, had ordered the immediate transfer of the suspects to the anti-kidnapping unit of the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCIID) for discreet investigation.