Fawaz Adebisi
Two business administration students of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Oluwatobiloba Orekoya, HND2, and Adejare Olayemi, ND1, were kidnapped along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, on Friday,October 28,2022.
According to reports, the Incident happened due to an accident involving two suspected yahoo boys, which led to gridlock, allowing the kidnappers to abduct people, as many people fell victim.
However, they got released after the sum of N1m ransom was paid, out of the N10m that was demanded for each of the victims.
The release of Oluwatobiloba was confirmed through a video that was posted, involving herself and a friend, while the Student Union President, Sodiq Ajani, declared the release of Olayemi as well.
While narrating the incident, the SUG president said “I was informed by the departmental president, as well as the executives of the department, after they informed me, I proceeded to confirm from her close friends, and when they informed me, I had to drive down to the police station. I told a friend and other executives of the department to meet me at the police station at Adigbe.
“So we were told the incident happened at Owode Local government, so the report would be made there. While we were there, we thought of communicating with the management, but it seems they were in a meeting, so we weren’t able to communicate with them at that moment.
“We moved down to Panseke because that was where she boarded the bus, to Ibadan, so that we could get information from them because they could know the driver. When we got there, we met her mother who said when she called her daughter, she(daughter) said someone has just been killed in her front.
“By then, we’ve been able to inform the management about the situation at hand. I even informed the S.A on students’ matter about the incident and he said they’re working on it.” He said.
When contacted, the Head of Class, HND2, Akinlabi Fisayo, confirmed the kidnap, as he said he got the report through her brother, who Oluwatobiloba called when the incident happened.
When asked to narrate how the incident happened, Fisayo said, “She’s my classmate and a very good friend of mine, I got to know through her friend, I was told she communicated when the kidnappers kidnapped her, when they demanded ransom, they called her junior brother, so it was her junior brother that called some of her friends, which I got to find out through them.
“the information I received was that she was traveling from Abeokuta to Oyo axis, she was kidnapped along Oyo axis, at the border of Ogun and Oyo, around Onigarri, that was what we got from the police, at Adige.
“We met with the chairman of the NURTW in charge of Panseke, so he explained his side of the information he got, and we were able to speak with the chairman of NURTW of Challenge, where the bus was heading to.
“So the chairman told me that the kidnapping was a mass kidnapping, that it’s not only the bus that was attacked, that it was a serious attack and that accident happened along that road, that probably some yahoo boys hit themselves, which led to traffic, so it was the traffic the kidnappers took advantage of according to what he said.
He added that “the bus was carrying seven passengers, but after the attack, it was able to pack 3 of the seven passengers, we also got the information that the girl and her friend were part of those four that were taken and the other two, which are yet to be identified.” He explained.
The driver, according to the Chairman was injured and was admitted to the hospital.
“He said the driver of the car is injured as at when we called him, and he said he’s going to be discharged and would come down to Abeokuta by four, that was on Saturday”.
Confirming the release of the victims, Ajani said “if not for the fundraising, we don’t know what would have happened.”
He said this while lamenting how the government neglected the incident, stating how the government can’t be relied upon.
He said, “As you can see, the government didn’t intervene, anything that happens to you, you are always on your own.
“If not for the fundraising, because they collected one million, if we didn’t raise the money now, we don’t know what would happen, the government can’t be relied on”. He said
He added that concerning Olayemi, “we just got a report not quite long about the release of the guy.” He said
Meanwhile, efforts to reach the victims’ parents proved abortive as they are out of reach at the time of filing this report.
