Nigerian dad recounts how kidnappers killed his 15-year-old son after collecting N1.5m ransom

A Nigerian man based in Kaduna state, Eguaku Anya, has shared the sad story of how kidnappers abducted his 15- year -old son, Stephen, and killed him after collecting N1.5million ransom.

Anya shared the story with newsmen at the Kaduna state police command today July 22 where the suspected mastermind of his son’s abduction was paraded before newsmen.

“On the 27th of May, 2020, this boy (Sylvester) and the other person came into my house and damaged a lot of things. They took away our phones, my laptop, my daughter’s phone and in addition, they abducted my own son in my car and left.

My son is 15 years. My son scored 245 in JAMB, he passed WAEC and NECO, only for him to enter school. They (kidnappers) stayed for a long time before contacting us and when they collected ransom, they switched off the phone.

When they finished the money, they called back and began to demand for money again. The first amount they demanded was N40 million. So as we negotiated we brought it down to N5 million and again it came to one million Naira. They collected that and said it was not enough, so we added N500, 000.

And all this while, we have been begging them let us hear the boy’s voice but as soon as they collected money, they switched off the phone.  Eventually they demanded for another N1.5 million and we agreed that we will rally round and get it for them but on the condition that we hear the boy’s voice and you release him to us, not knowing that they had killed the boy already the following day after the kidnap.

It was only God that saved me and my brother that went to give them the money. They could as well have killed or abducted us. That was when we went and alerted the anti- kidnapping unit and FCID.”

Anya said the abductors killed his son and dumped his body in a well.

“They killed him and dumped him in a well that is the most gruesome way of killing person. Not only that he was killed but in a gruesome way.

The effect of that still attacks me every time when I think about what my son could be thinking before he was killed. It is terrible.” Anya said

Confirming the incident, the spokesperson of the state police command, ASP Muhammad Jalige, said the suspects killed their victim, dumped his body in a shallow well, and then threw in about 20 building blocks to prevent the corpse from floating.