The National Secretary of the Afenifere Youth Council, Abiodun Aderohunmu, says kidnappers have demanded the sum of N100m and two tricycles as ransom for the abducted National President of the Youth Council, Prince Eniola Olajuni.
The council had earlier raised the alarm over Olajuni’s kidnap in a statement last Thursday, noting that he had sustained a bullet wound on his buttock while calling on the Nigerian authorities “to take immediate action to ensure Prince Olajuni’s safe release.”
However, in a viral video on Monday, the Afenifere youth leader pleaded with Nigerians to help him raise the N100m ransom demanded by the kidnappers who threatened to kill him by 3 pm on Monday, while one of the kidnappers pointing an AK-47 at Olajuni’s chest.
“Nigerians, please help me! Your donation —N100,000, N50,000, or N1,000,000— can go a long way in saving my life. My name is Prince Eniola Olajuni. God bless you. Aderohunmu, please help me spread this video,” he pleaded in the video.
Speaking with our correspondent via phone call on Monday, Aderohunmu disclosed that the kidnappers had also demanded two tricycles, which he noted were estimated at N5m each, bringing the total of the demanded ransom to N110m.
He explained that the incident occurred while Olajuni was on his way to Abuja for a meeting last week, and confirmed that he had been shot three times and that Afenifere was doing all it could to raise the funds for his release.
“That kidnap happened on his way to Abuja. It was a business meeting he was going to, and it happened on February 17, Monday of last week. It is a week today since it happened. They wanted N100m initially. When we could not meet up yesterday, they told him, which I also overheard, they were saying to me that since he couldn’t meet up in time, they were adding two tricycles to it. That is, N100m and two tricycles.
“So, if you’re looking at that structurally, we are talking about N110m. That is if each tricycle costs N5m, presumably. He has three gunshots to his buttocks. I mean, we are just praying that God will miraculously bring him out. We (Afenifere) will do all that we can, trying to raise funds. At least, that is it for now”, he said.
Meanwhile, a security expert, Jackson Ojo, described kidnapping in the country as “an abnormality that is turning into a norm in Nigeria”, while faulting the incapacity of the communication and security experts to trace the perpetrators despite measures put in place to prevent such incidences.
“If something like this happens like this, for one, two, three, four, five days, and these people are using communication gadgets to show his picture to the world, to show his audio to the world, and we are saying we have the Ministry of Communication, and we are saying we have communication experts at the federal, state, and local government levels, and we are saying we have the intelligence community, that Nigerian taxpayers’ money is used to pay them, and these people doing this are not traceable, it’s a shame on the people that are supposed to be able to rescue this guy,” he said.
Another expert, Chidi Omeje, lamented the situation of kidnap in the country, noting that while Olajuni’s kidnap had gained attention, many more happened without the knowledge of Nigerians, while also faulting the silence of the Police, adding that the security agency had failed to show capacity in this case.
“Talking about the police, well, you know, I don’t know what they are doing about it. If they have not talked about it, probably they do not want to talk about it. Probably, they are making surreptitious moves. But of course, we know that the Nigeria Police has not shown the capacity in this situation. For almost a week now, this young man has been in this situation. Nobody knows what is happening to him. Nobody is telling anybody anything. And we have a spokesman for the police who usually talks about irrelevant things, you know, bantering on social media with young people.
“Nothing excuses crime. There is nothing you can tell me that is the reason behind a crime. But of course, we know there is a correlation between joblessness and a spike in crimes and criminality. There is a nexus between the fact that unemployment is rife and everything, and of course, the spike in criminality. So the government must look into that”, he said.
As of the time of filing this report, the Force Public Relations Officer, SP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, could not be reached for comments, as he did not respond to phone calls or text messages from our correspondent.
