From Molly Kilete, Abuja
A 27-year-old kidnap kingpin and leader of a notorious armed robbery gang has revealedwhy they wear military camouflage during robbery operations.
According to the suspect, Musa Ibrahim, who has been in the kidnap for ransom business for some years now, they wear military camouflage to carry out their operations because that is the only way they can be respected by their victims who are mostly travellers and road users.
Ibrahim, who is a member of an 11-man kidnap gang before they were arrested by men of the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT), said that he and his gang members operate mostly in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Niger, Kaduna and other states in the North were they abduct passengers and get huge amount of monies from their families as ransom.
Married to three wives with children, Ibrahim, described kidnapping as one of the most lucrative businesses now in Nigeria where you make money on a daily basis.
While some of their victims are from poor homes whose family members do not have huge amount of money to rescue them, the suspect said that others who are from rich homes waste no time to rescue their loved ones in captivity.
Dressed in full military camouflage, the suspect who was paraded by the police alongside his gang members in Abuja, said that he went into kidnapping through one of his friends who introduced him into the business which he found to be very lucrative from the one he was doing before.
Before going into full time kidnapping, ibrahim who claimed to be a farmer/herder said that he worked very hard on the farms and took care of animals, but got little or nothing at the end of the day.
He also said that he could hardly provide three square meals for his family while working as a farmer and herder saying all that changed when he joined kidnapping.
Joining the gang, he said he was handed down the uniform by one of their leaders who also provided the same for every member of the gang.
On how they operate, he said they usually target very busy routes and look out for expensive cars, buses, space wagons and other attractive cars.
On spotting their choice vehicle, they immediately open fire to force the vehicle to stop.
However, he said that some drivers usually escape no matter the intensity of the firing while others for fear of not wanting to be killed stop and obey their orders.
To ensure they are not caught, he said they usually change location after every attack to evade police arrest.
He also said that they usually take sometime off the road like one or two weeks before embarking on another operation.
Apart from laying siege to busy routes, he said that they also get their victims through their agents who work as spies in the villages where they operate and pay them at the end of each successful operation.
He, however, claimed that he has taken part in only three operations when they struck at Gwagwalada, in the FCT, Sabo in Kaduna State and another town in Niger State and had made just N600,000, which he used to take care of his wife and children.
His words: “My name is Musa Ibrahim, I am 27 years old. I am a kidnapper. I have participated in three kidnap operations where we kidnapped about 10 persons. In our operation somewhere in Gwagwalada, we kidnapped five people, we kidnapped two at Kachia and three Soba.
“I have two AK 47 rifles that I operate with. I bought them after I found kidnapping to be lucrative, but the police recovered one of the guns after I was arrested while the other one is still where I hid it.
“I have made N600, 000 since I joined the group. In my first operation with them, I was given N170,000, the second one I was given 250,000 and the last operation I got N180,000. I used the money to take care of my wife and children because I am a married man with children.
“We used to get our information on who to attack and kidnap from some people in the village who we pay to give us information and sometimes we just go to the highways and mount roadblock and watch out for big and expensive cars and passengers vehicle. We target such vehicles because we are sure to get money from the victims especially the owners of big vehicles they don’t like to waste time, they pay us whatever we demand in matter of hours and go away. We also go after commercial vehicles because they carry very important people and children of big men who do everything in their powers to rescue their children.
“When we first started kidnapping, we don’t use to wear military camouflage and we found that when some vehicles notice our presence on the road they quickly make a reverse and alert other vehicle not to ply the route then they will go and alert the security personnel who will now come after us. So, to make motorists feel safe, we then decided to be wearing army camouflage to rob. And since we took that decision, it has been working very well because motorists no longer see us as armed robbers, they now see us as soldiers on duty and we go into action when they get close and we open fire.
“Wearing the military camouflage has paid off as it is now easier for us to get our victims. Motorists respect army uniform and they have started respecting us and stop unlike when we wore our usual clothes they would sight us and escape from our attack but they don’t do that to people wearing army uniform, that’s why we wear military camouflage to rob.”