Operatives of the Ogun State Police Command have arrested two persons in connection with the forceful abduction of Pastor Mapai Samuel of Zoe Family International Church, Odo Eran, Abeokuta, Ogun State.
This was disclosed by the spokesman of the Ogun State Police Command, Abimbola Oyeyemi, in a statement on Thursday.
Oyeyemi said the suspects were arrested in the early hours of Thursday.
He gave the names of the female and male suspects as Opeyemi Ibikunle and Kadiri Jamiu respectively.
He said they were arrested following a distress call received by policemen at Aregbe Divisional Police Headquarters that two men who dressed in military camouflage accompanied by a woman invaded the church while the pastor was preaching at about 8pm on Wednesday and forcefully dragged him out of the church.
According to the distress call, Ibikunle and Jamiu took Pastor Samuel away to unknown destination.
Not quite long after taking the pastor away, the invaders called to demand for ransom.
Upon the distress call, the Divisional Police Officer, Aregbe Division, CSP Ikechukwu Gabriel, and his detectives quickly embarked on technical and intelligence-based investigation and discovered that the suspects were hiding somewhere around Adigbe area of Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
Gabriel and his men in conjunction with men of Adigbe Division stormed the hideout, where the Pastor was rescued and two of the suspects arrested.
The two men in military camouflage escaped.
On interrogation, the woman amongst them claimed to have been in a business relationship with the pastor.
Ibikunle said Samuel cheated her in the course of the business, which made her to contact the three men to kidnap him in order to teach him a lesson.
The Command’s Commissioner, CP Lanre Bankole, who praised his men for their quick response to the distress call, has ordered the immediate transfer of the suspects to the Anti-Kidnapping Unit of the state Criminal Investigation Department for discreet investigation.
Bankole also directed that other members of the gang must be hunted for and brought to book.
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