Tobias Sylvester
Kwara State Police Command has arrested a 24-year-old teacher, Medinat Ibrahim, who allegedly faked her own kidnap in the Olude, Oke-Fomo area, Ilorin.
Medinat, who was paraded on Wednesday alongside two other suspects, Amudalat Wahab (30) and Hammed Lekan (28), said she committed the crime to raise money to settle debt which accrued from the monthly contribution in her place of work.
The 24-year-old teacher accused her step-mother of maltreating her and also causing friction between her and her father since her mother’s demise.
She said her business had collapsed, adding that she decided to fake her own kidnap to get money to offset debts she incurred during COVID-19 lockdown because the private school, where she taught as a teacher, had stopped paying her salary since COVID-19 broke out.
“I teach in a private school where I was paid N15,000. We organised monthly contribution which I collected and invested in a business, but when COVID-19 broke out, our salary was stopped, I could no longer continue with the contribution,” she said.
“Those who were in the group continued to mount pressure on me to pay up my own contribution and there is nowhere that I could get the money. So I decided to go and hide in my sister’s place and I told someone to call my father on phone that I was kidnapped and demanded a ransom of N250,000 which was paid to my friend’s account.”
The state Commissioner of Police, Muhammed Bagega, said Medinat conspired with her elder sister, Amudalat Wahab, and one Hammed Lekan to arrange her kidnap.
The commissioner said a bank account belonging to Lekan was used to cash the ransom of N250,000. He assured the determination of the command to send away criminal elements from the state.
KanyiDaily had also reported how a teenage girl was arrested for allegedly conspiring with her boyfriend to fake her own kidnap and demand N30 million ransom from her family in Lagos State.
