The abductors of 16 wedding guests along Gwombe village in Gwargwada chiefdom of Kuje Area Council of the FCT have reduced their ransom demand from N150 million to N15 million.
They are, however, asking the families of the victims to pay them with the new naira notes.
City & Crime had reported that gunmen on December, 10, 2022 at about 5pm abducted 16 people, including children and women, who were returning from a wedding in Abaji town.
A family member of one of those abducted, simply identified as Yakubu, said the gunmen called on Monday morning and asked each family member to raise N1 before the victims would be set free.
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He said one of those abducted was released after their abductors discovered that he was sick.
“It was on Monday, around 11:23am that the leader of the gunmen used one of the victims’ phone to call and demanded that each family member raise N1 million and the money should be new naira notes before the victims would be set free,” he said.
He said the families of the victims have been pleading with the gunmen to still reduce the ransom to an amount they could be able to raise.
The Agabe of Gwargwada-Ugbada Chiefdom, His Royal Highness (HRH), Alhaji Hussain Agabi Mam, confirmed the reduction in ransom to N15 million, even as he disclosed that the family of the victims had pleaded with them to collect N3.5 million.
“And even the N3.5 million the family of the victims pleaded for to pay the gunmen is not available as they have to go and source for the money,” he said.
The spokeswoman of the FCT Police Command, DSP Adeh Josephine, was yet to react to the ransom demand by the gunmen at the time of filing this report.
