Police Arrest Four Teenagers Over Kidnap Of Six-Year-Old Boy

The police in Bauchi State have arrested four teenagers for allegedly kidnapping a six year-old-boy and demanding N2.6m ransom in order to start a tailoring outfit.

The teenagers were among 32 suspects paraded on Friday for various offences bordering on armed robbery, rape among others at the Police Headquarters in Bauchi.

Speaking to journalists, one of the suspects, Muhammad Isa, confessed that he was lured into the crime by his friend, Abdulgafar Adamu.

Isa, an 18-year-old student of Legal Studies, Misau, claimed that the 6-year-old victim is their victim’s son.

“I met my school friend and told him about the kidnapping plan because we need money to start a business, sitting without doing anything was the reason we did it,” he said.

While blaming the cause of the action on the COVID-19 lockdown, Isa said: “that’s what made us decide we want to start a business because we don’t know the day of resuming of school. We asked his father to come with one million to collect his boy.”

According to the police authorities, the kidnappers had earlier demanded N2.5 million and after much negotiation, they agreed to receive 1 million naira.

The victim was said to have been kept in one of the suspect’s parent’s house for two days.

Reacting to the incident, the Commissioner of Police in the state, Lawal Jimeta, said the case is still under investigation.

“You saw the nature of the suspects of the kidnappers. What is frightening is that you saw their ages, they are very small, and none of them has reached 20 years.

“They did the kidnapping right close to where they stay, that is very frightening. Some of them have just finished secondary school, only one of them is in the first year of university. As I said it is very frightening, they are the ones that kidnapped the 6 years,” he said.