A suspect, Mrs Joy Emmanuel Sunday has confessed to the police that she kidnapped her husband to raise funds to sustain their children.
Mrs Sunday,40, was reported to have kidnapped her husband, Mr Emmanuel Sampson Ebong, an indigene of Ntak Obio Akpa in Oruk Anam local government area, Akwa Ibom State because he starved her of sex and abandoned their children.
The estranged wife, who had successfully negotiated N2000,000 as ransom from the deal, claimed her decision came after taking on series of menial jobs to singlehandedly fend for herself and their four children after being abandoned by the husband.
Mrs Sunday who was among 29 other persons paraded for various offences including kidnapping by the Police on Friday lamented that she was unfortunately not given her share of the ransom money, after the abduction was successful.
“I arranged for my husband’s kidnapping because for a long time, he had abandoned me with his children. Even when my father and mother in-laws were alive he abandoned me. He never cared for his children. I engaged in menial jobs such as weeding in people’s farm to feed his children and pay their school fees. One of the children finished from secondary school and I approached my husband to plan how to send the son to learn a trade since the father refused to send him to university, but my husband shunned me.
“But the major reason is that my husband refused to have sex with me and does not take care of me and the children. The kidnapper that collected the ransom of N2million never gave my share and I did not even see the money. It was when the kidnappers were appropriating the N2m that the police arrested them and they mentioned me. They did not give me any part of the ransom collected from my husband.
“The kidnap kingpin (now at large) known as Udo moji assured me that he would collect the money from my husband for me since my husband attacked me and poured away my soup in the pot. So, I agreed with him and he kidnapped my husband. I ran around to gather money to pay the kidnappers. The main suspect, Udo moji ran away,” she stated.
The husband, Emmanuel Sampson Ebong from Ntak Obio Akpa in Oruk Anam local government area, said he was kidnapped on July 21, 2022 in his compound.
He stated that he just returned from treating an ailment when the kidnappers entered his compound and took him away, adding that he was fortunate that the Police came to his rescue.
Ebong added: “I came back from treatment because I was weak. Around 8.30pm, I saw about six people enter into my compound. They struggled with me and released two gun shots into the atmosphere in my compound.They took me out of my compound in a mini bus and drove away. They kept me from that Thursday till Sunday and demanded N10m from me and later reduced it to N2m.
“They took me to Etinan where they caged me. I thank the Nigeria Police for the rescue operations because If not God, they would have killed me. I also thank my Village Head. I did not know the reason they kidnapped me.They collected N2m from me. The police later recovered over N500,000 from them.