A
Pastor of the Deeper Life Bible Ministry has miraculously escaped from
the den of kidnappers.
He sensationally made his escape as they
dozed off.
Pastor Gilbert Akioyamen, was abducted at about 6 pm
on March 24, along Ukhun road, Ekpoma, Esan West local government area
of the state, while on his way to the Deeper Life camp ground.
Three
of the suspected kidnappers, including a business woman, namely,
Charles Arasomwan, 22; Jezreel Ekanem, 21; and Mbindi Nneka, 26; were
paraded on Thursday with 72 other suspects arrested for various crimes,
at the state police command headquarters in Benin.
Narrating
their level of involvement and how their victim escaped from their grip,
one of the suspects, Ekanem, said the Pastor had been kept in their
custody by some other fleeing members of the gang who promised to reward
them .
“They
said that they were going to a bank and told us to keep an eye on the
man. They said that they would give us something to buy some beer.
‘The man did not talk to us, so we slept off. When we woke up, we realised that he had escaped,” he explained.
His
female counterpart, Mbindi Nneka, however denied any knowledge of the
abduction, saying that she was only in the apartment to remove her
property.
”I don’t know how the matter started. I was the one living
in the apartment before I put my brother there when I got married. It
was the landlord that instructed me to remove the property there. I wish
I knew that it would have resulted into this; it was the landlord that
put me in this problem. I only went there to move the property to my
house,” she said.
According to the State Commissioner of Police,
Mr. Chris Ezike, the suspects were arrested after the Ekpoma
divisional police headquarters, received a distress call and combed
several buildings in the area.
He explained that while Arasomwan
and Ekanem were nabbed in the building where the victim was kept, Nneka
was arrested in the apartment of one of the suspects, said to be her
relative.
‘Two locally made cut-to-size single barrel guns, mask,
ATM cards, one long rope and one mat were recovered from the suspects,”
Ezike said.
The kidnapping suspects were among the scores of criminals paraded by the Edo Police Command today.