‘How we planned, kidnapped Kano boy’

The lifeless body of Aliyu, who was kidnapped penultimate Tuesday while returning from an Islamic school, was dumped in an uncompleted building a day after by the kidnappers after a N2m ransom was paid to their account.
Speaking to newsmen at the headquarters of the State Security Service (SSS) in Kano where he is being detained, the suspect said he spent three weeks to befriend the boy before carrying out the operation.
“I was engaged by Sarki to carry out the kidnap. He was the one that designed the operation but I was the one that executed it. I spent three weeks in order to monitor the boy. I endeared myself to the boy with biscuits and sweets. Daily I go to the boy’s school and at the end of the day I give sweet and biscuit to him. Throughout my visit to him I was wearing the school’s uniform,” Mohammed said.
“The day I kidnapped him, the boy was the one that came to me immediately after school hours. We walked with him without people noticing. After I succeeded in kidnapping him I was the one that wrote the letter that we sent to the boy’s father through one Almajiri. And again, I was the one that negotiated the ransom. In fact, the N2m was paid into my brother’s account.”
Mohammed, who recently secured admission to a state-owned polytechnic, said he executed the operation following a threat by Sarki.
“Yes I executed it but it was Sarki that engaged me and threatened to kill me should I expose the operation,” he said.
For his part, 31-year-old Jamilu Mohammed, alias Sarki, who allegedly masterminded the kidnap, confessed that he organised the abduction but that he has not seen the boy’s father before.
“I didn’t know that the boy’s father secured any contract as people are claiming that we kidnapped the boy because his father got a contract from Kano state government. It was just a coincidence,” he said.
Also speaking, the owner of the account into which the ransom was paid, Bashir Musa (25), said he was not aware that the money was a ransom.
“They told me that I should give them my account that their uncle wants to send money to them. So when I received alert I called them that N2, 000 has been sent to them through my account. I never knew it was N2m,” he said.
Parading the suspects, Kano State Director of SSS, Mr. Basset Eteng, said they arrested the four persons involved in the kidnap.
“This is a new trend of threat in the state that we will not allow it to gain ground in the state,” he said.