Suspected gunmen raided Piko, a secluded town in Abuja’s Bwari Area Council, and kidnapped 13 people.
It was reported that the incident, which began at midnight on Sunday in the village, continued for more than an hour without being challenged by either the vigilante group or other security forces.
According to a close community source, Chief John Jatau, the village’s Maidakin, has verified that 10 residents, including four nomadic Fulani herders, were kidnapped from his domain.
He noted that out of the four Fulani people, one escaped from the kidnappers’ custody.
While he said that the kidnappers had demanded a ransom of N900 million, he also gave the names of the kidnapped victims from his community.
According to him, the kidnap victims from the community that are still with their abductors are Nuhu Anyiwoyi, Emmanuel Nuhu, Danjuma Ali, Parisa Numa, Ezekiel Jatau, Shekwosa Ezekiel, Roseline Samuel, Salome Jacob, Abyelo Ezra, and Ezra Male.
The source said, “The kidnapping incident occurred last night Sunday 05/05/2024, at about 11 pm. The kidnappers raided the village for about one hour without any response, or reaction from the community or outsiders, the major challenge the community faced last night in terms of communication to others was as a result of no telecommunication network in the village, so they picked people’s house to house, from the community they picked about 13 people, and later release three.
“The Madakin Piko informed me that they (gunmen) have called and they said they need the ramson of N900,000,000 (nine hundred million naira). They picked about four Fulani people and one of them is released.”
All possible efforts to reach the FCT Police Public Relations Officer, SP Josephine Adeh, proved abortive as she neither replied to messages nor picked up calls placed to her for clarification on the incident.
