The Commander of the Nigerian Navy Base in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, Commodore Yakubu Wanbai on Friday handed over a woman rescued from kidnappers from a waterway to the State Police Command.
The Naval Commander handed over the victim, Mrs Tokoni TrustGod, to police representatives, CSP James Ejure, from the Criminal Investigation Department, and Mr Richard Ogwuche of the Anti-Kidnap Squad of the State Police Command.
While receiving the victim from the Naval Commander, Ejure called for collaboration between security agencies in the state so as to effectively fight crime.
He applauded the Navy for the feat and reiterated the resolve of the police to carryout “discrete investigations’’ into the matter with a view to arresting the suspected kidnappers.
According to Wanbai, the alleged kidnappers had on Thursday whisked the victim away from her residence at about 2 am in Angiama-Gbene area of the state.
He said, “My men on patrol in the waterways got a distress call and the gunboat headed to the scene of the incident.
‘’The suspected kidnappers, whose speedboat had developed a fault, abandoned their victim and fled on sighting the patrol boat.
“My men rescued the woman and brought her to the base, in line with the existing inter-agency cooperation, we handed over the woman to the Police for preliminary investigations.’’
TrustGod, while narrating her ordeal, said the kidnappers, numbering five, were armed with gun and machetes as they stormed her residence at Angiama-Gbene in the early hours of Thursday, before whisking her away.
“They broke into the house and asked me if I was Prof. Millionaire Ambowei’s sister and I told them that I wasn’t.
‘’They said that I was lying and took me away to the water side where they put me in a speedboat.
“When we got to Olagbene, their boat developed fault and also ran out of fuel.
‘’When they saw an oncoming boat, they fled into the bush, I also ran away and the people in the boat took me and hid me in the neighbouring community.
“Shortly afterward, the kidnappers who had fixed their boat came back to the place I was kept and shot severally, threatening to kill the people if I was not produced.
‘’They brought me out and left with me for the waterside.
“We boarded the kidnappers’ boat again, but at this point the Navy patrol team arrived, and we heard the sound of the Navy gunboat.
“It was at this point that the kidnappers abandoned their boat and escaped into the bush, and when the Navy people came I cried out to them that I was the one held hostage.
“The Navy men took me in their boat and brought me to Yenagoa,” she stated.
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