'I tied my own hands' — Edo woman who faked kidnapping speaks, reveals debt drove her to stage drama

• She admitted staging her own kidnapping and said debt pressure drove her to orchestrate the scheme.

• She revealed that she tied her own hands and helped create videos showing a gun pointed at her to make the abduction appear real.

• No ransom was paid, and police arrested Ugbowan along with three others allegedly involved in the plot.

The Edo State woman whose staged kidnapping sent her family into a fundraising frenzy and her Canada-based daughter into a public appeal for ransom money has now told police exactly how she planned it and why.

Oluchi Ugbowan, 45, was paraded alongside three others by the Edo State Police Command this week after her arrest at a hotel in the Ikpoba Hills area. Speaking in a video shared by the command's spokesperson, CSP Eno Ikoedem, Ugbowan did not deny what she had done. She explained it.

The trigger, she said, was debt. A microfinance institution had come to her home the same day she disappeared. Facing pressure she felt she could not escape through legitimate means, she reached out to a younger acquaintance and proposed what she called a drama; a staged abduction designed to pressure her family into raising money quickly.

"I told them I wanted to stage a drama that would look like a kidnapping," she said. "I was the one who tied my hands. My mindset was that if they saw stronger evidence, they would come up with a better negotiation."

The production escalated further than she initially intended. She suggested using a cutlass first, then upgraded to a gun when she learned the family of her co-conspirator had one at home. The father's unlicensed firearm, acquired for vigilante purposes according to him, was brought into the room, pressed against her neck while she was told to "say your last prayer." That footage was sent to her family as proof of abduction.

The ransom demand started at ₦50 million. When her family said they could only raise ₦3.5 million, the figure dropped to ₦20 million. Ugbowan said at that point she told her accomplice even ₦5 million would have been enough to settle what she owed.

"We acted it out as a drama," she said. "That was not my intention. It was the debt that was weighing heavily on me."

Her accomplice, who purchased the SIM card used for the ransom calls and accompanied her to the hotel where they made contact with her husband, said he was drawn in through persistence and pressure. 

"After so much begging, I said okay, no problem," he told police. His younger brother, Chinedu Chibuzor, said he was told the whole thing was a church drama and had no idea it was a real scheme.

The younger brother pointed the gun. The father who owned it was also paraded.

No ransom was paid. Ugbowan's daughter Anita, who had gone public with appeals for help and whose reputation took the most public damage from the episode, had confirmed earlier that the money raised would be returned in full. Ugbowan expressed regret. The court will decide what that is worth.

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