Elder brother of Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State, Adamu Mohammed Duguri, who was recently abducted, has given details of his encounter with the abductors.
Duguri said they collected N5om ransom before they could release him.
According to him, it was his family who paid the money, adding that neither security operatives nor the state government was involved in the negotiation, payment or his release.
Duguri, a former Customs officer, was kidnapped when his brother was still in isolation due to coronavirus infection.
Ke said in an interview that the abductors who, according to him, are well educated, treated him well, giving him apple and Maltina whenever he demanded.
He explained (sic):
“They said they have not kidnapped somebody as big as l am. You know l was a uniformed man before. They know l knew all what they were doing. They felt l was a threat to them and were demanding N350 million, which l said when you look for that kind of money l will continue to be a liability for you here.
“I told them l have acclimatised already. I eat well. The only thing was l didn’t sleep well because it was on a mat all of us were sleeping. They gave me three pillows and supplied me apples with a bottle of maltina, anything l wanted they gave me.
”l made it clear to them if you are looking for money from Bauchi State they don’t have. Or are you thinking you want to demand for more money so that Bauchi State governor will bring money and you will release me and impeach him? Because they told me there was a kind of problem in the State Assembly which was centred on whether the governor would remove money from Bauchi coffers and release me.
”My abductors were educated with western education, not only religious. They refused to talk to avoid being traced. They said the moment you talk to somebody now, they can easily be trailed. They knew what they were doing. They had to take my voice, they would later take it to Jos, relay it to somebody in Kaduna. That person then send it to Kano before calling my family. That was what they did.
”To avoid being tracked, they went to Gombe, not Jos this time because of the anti- tracking device. To get the anti- tracking on took time because l wouldn’t have stayed there long. They were even complaining that l stayed too long with them and that they were afraid.”
“On the issue of ransom , they said they would come down to N100 million but i insisted that nobody will give them that amount of money. They however suggested that if they release me, they can collect the remaining amount later but i asked them how will they collect the money and I told them it won’t work because if you come to my house l will shout.
“So we gave them the ransom but it was not up to N100 million, It was about N50 million.”
