The suspect, Kelvin Okorie, 27, was tracked and arrested by detectives attached to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Ikeja, Lagos State after 11 months of chasing him and his gang members across different African countries.
Aside from Okorie, other members of the gang now in police custody are Innocent Onyekwe, 38, Ugwu Christopher, 37, Christian Mercy, 19, and Ogbonna Njioku, 20. Okorie confessed that he sold Precious to be able to raise money to start his own business.
The state Commissioner of Police, Mr Kayode Aderanti, said that the victim, residing at Ajah with her parents, was on her way back to school, a boarding facility in Ikenne, Ogun State when she was kidnapped. He said: “The kidnappers after two months of holding the victim hostage contacted her parents, using various telephone numbers. They demanded for various sums of money ranging from $30,000, N200,000 and N30,000 as ransom. They also furnished different account numbers as details for receiving the ransom.”
Aderanti added that numerous suspects were arrested but the breakthrough came when a decoy team of SARS led by Officer in Charge of SARS, Abba Kyari, arrested Okorie. He said: “Through him, contact was established with the gang’s member in Libya which led to the safe return of the victim to Lagos on April 24, 2015, almost a year after the abduction of the teenager.” Recalling how she was abducted, Precious said that she was going back to school when she ran into some cult members who thought she overheard their conversation.
The schoolgirl said they beat her to the state of coma and even attempted to rape her. One of them, however, stopped others from raping her. She said: “The guy, Seun,took me to his home and said that I should stay with him for two weeks until I was fit to go. He said I shouldn’t call anybody.” Precious stayed with Seun for two weeks until the fateful day they both went out to buy drugs. It was then she ran into her cousin. She narrated her ordeal to Okorie, who took her to his house at Alaba.
According to her, when they got there, they met Daniel, Okorie’s friend who used to travel and work in Libya. Okorie said: “The last I saw Precious, she was just a little girl. That night we both went to my house. Daniel was there when she narrated her ordeal. After listening to her, Daniel suggested she should go with him to Libya. I was happy I would have somebody overseas. We all went to Alaba. It was there that Daniel gave me N10,000.” He added that he lied to Precious that he would tell her mother that she had gone to Libya with his friend, Daniel.
The suspects said they had a common friend, Njioku, a trader in Abia State, who had a brother in Libya. According to Okorie, Daniel travelled to Libya, sold Precious to Njioku’s brother and left for Dubai. Okorie said: “When Precious got to Libya, she called me that she had been forced into prostitution. I told her to look for a way to escape.
“I was scared of what I had done.” Stating his own side of the story, Njioku said he did not know anything about the matter until he was arrested. He said: “I was approached by Kelvin (Okorie) and Daniel to give them my brother’s number who lives in Libya. I did. Two days later, Daniel called me to tell me he has arrived in Libya.”
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