The string of events that led to the death of 35-year-old Christie Agbulu, a lecturer in the Department of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Benue State, sounded like one made for a scary movie.
But for over one month, the nightmare was real for Agbulu’s family, who waited endlessly with hope that she would be released safely after she was kidnapped in the evening of November 26, 2016.
Information from police investigators offered Saturday PUNCH a look into the investigation that led the police to the kidnappers’ ring leader.
After the suspect was arrested, he subsequently gave the location of where the deceased’s body was found.
That day, Agbulu had just alighted from a bus around 7pm,when an okada rider accosted her, asking where she was going.
She then told him the address that a friend, Levi Shemba, whom she was visiting had given her, indicating that she did not know the place.
The okada rider, who turned out to be one of the members of the syndicate who targeted people who are new to the city, told her to jump on.
“Unknown to her, the okada rider took her to a different location. It was through our investigation that we learnt that the syndicate had been operating as okada riders for a while,” the Public Relations Officer, Kogi State Police Command, Mr. Ovye Williams, said.
The okada rider was said to have taken Agbulu to a forest and demanded a ransom of N150,000, directing the family to pay it in the victim’s bank account. The family then paid N100,000 which her captors later withdrew with her ATM card.
“When we got a report of the kidnap, we entered the bush. The Commissioner of Police, Mr. Abdullahi Chafe, mobilised different units to comb the area. While we were doing that, we were tracking the phone number they were using to communicate with the family.”
For about a month after Agbulu’s kidnap, the police investigation got no breakthrough as the kidnappers changed location frequently in the forest to avoid being pinpointed.
Each time the police identified a location through tracking, the kidnappers would have moved.
Saturday PUNCH learnt that the police eventually got a break in the case. When they tracked Agbulu’s own line, which the kingpin of the syndicate had converted to personal use.
“We tracked the line and eventually located the suspect using it. When he was arrested by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad and identified as the gang leader, he then took our men to two other members of the gang.
Saturday PUNCH obtained the identity of the suspects, who have been named as Nuhu Musa (29), Caleb Moses (28) and Sanusi Jibrin (33).
“The suspects confirmed that they belonged to the syndicate that kidnapped people in Lokoja. Anytime a stranger came to the town and did not know the location, they pretended to be okada riders looking for passengers.
“They then led the SARS operatives to where the body of the lecturer was found in a shallow grave along the Lokoja-Abuja Expressway. When the police got there, they realised it had decomposed.
During investigations, the suspects reportedly confessed to have kidnapped a second victim, Grace Ene Onaivi, an Edo State indigene and 300 Level student of the Benue State University.
Onaivi was declared missing on December 23, 2016 by her family members after they could not reach her.
The suspects told the police that they had kidnapped Onaivi exactly the same way Agbulu was abducted with a commercial motorcycle. They also dumped Onaivi’s body in the area where Agbulu’s body was found few days prior.
It is still unclear in what way the victims were killed.
Williams told our correspondent that an autopsy would be conducted on the bodies to determine the cause of death.
The incidents have prompted the police in Kogi State to start a frantic effort to screen okada riders in the state.
The police spokesperson said the command was liaising with the state government to make a customised hat for all the okada riders in the state.
Williams said, “We are also working on a centralised data through which we can trace any of the commercial motorcyclists in the state at any point in time.
“We are also embarking on an awareness campaign that anyone expecting a first-time visitor from outside the state, should ensure the visitor remains in the motor park and pick them there instead.
“We are also informing the people that they should not ever board an okada that has no plate number while okada riders who have not registered should do so immediately. In case of any incident, we would know how to trace them.”
He said investigation was still ongoing on the case as the suspects were cooperating.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities at FUAM, where Agbulu worked, Mr. Benigy Anjembe, has described the death of Agbulu as a big loss to the university community as a whole.
“One can only imagine the efforts her family put into training her up to the level where she was on the verge of obtaining her Ph.D.
“Imagine the agony she would have gone through in the hands of her captors before she was killed.”
Anjembe, who spoke with one of our correspondents on telephone, said that the only way Agbulu could be honoured was to prosecute the arrested suspects without delay so that justice could be achieved.
He described her as a highly intelligent woman and an epitome of humility, who had no iota of violence in her.
Anjembe lamented that Kogi State had been in the news for the wrong reasons lately.
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