Kidnappings scare business owners out of Ogun

Oyebolu

Owners of businesses in several parts of Ogun state are closing up and relocating to neighbouring cities, following an upsurge in cases of kidnapping which appear to targetted at them.

One of the latest victims, Chief Segun Oyebolu, who was kidnapped in Ijebu-Ode, and released only after paying N10 million as ransom, has closed his businesses and left the town over what he called “unchallenged cases of kidnapping.”

Oyebolu, who is the Chief Executive Officer of the popular Citi Hotels and Suites, and a non-governmental organisation, ‘Feed the Elderly Foundation’ has also directed his lawyers to put his office buildings and the gigantic headquarters of the Foundation up for sale.

Said Oyebolu, “the huge building and my personal residence in the town are up for sale already and I have briefed my lawyers to put them on the market and bring me offers.

“I have closed my operational office at Erinlu, Ijebu-Ode. I similarly called and dismissed all my staff at the Feed the Elderly Foundation in Ijebu-Ode.

“Next week, I will pay OGTV & OGBC to announce my intention to stop the Feed The Elderly Foundation project in Ogun State. It is nonesensical to continue to plough your own earnings to help people who possibly don’t want you to succeed. The Feed the Elderly Foundation project has been

exclusively funded in major parts from my own resources. The huge building and my personal residence in the town are up for sale already.”

Oyebolu noted that another business man and his friend,  Alhaji Safiriyu Araba
popularly called “Aranse Oluwa” in the ancient town was also targetted and kidnapped, just two months after his own incident.

Said he, “I am leaving. It is indeed crazy to continue to live here after another business man and friend was targeted and abducted less than two months after my kidnap.

He said,’ “Aranse has been a wonderful business person of repute. We were neighbours..., even till now he is still being held by his captors demanding ransom in millions of naira.

What made his case more pathetic was that he had just being bruised by his own staff who made away with several millions of naira in a calculated fraud that left him penniless before his abduction.”