Men of Ogun State Police Command, yesterday, arrested two people in connection with forceful abduction of one Pastor Mapai Samuel of ZOE family International Church, located at Odo Eran area of Abeokuta. The suspects, Ibikunle Opeyemi (female) and Kadiri Jamiu (male) were arrested following a distress call received by policemen at Aregbe Divisional Headquarters, that the two men, who dressed in military camouflage accompanied by a woman invaded the church while the pastor was preaching at about 8:00 p.m., and forcefully dragged the pastor out of the church and took him away to unknown destination. Not quite long after taking the pastor away, the invaders called to demand for a certain amount of money as ransom. Upon the distress call, the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) Aregbe division, Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP), Ikechukwu Gabriel, and his detectives quickly embarked on intelligence based investigation and discovered that the suspects were hiding somewhere around the Adigbe area of Abeokuta.
The DPO and his men in conjunction with men of Adigbe division stormed the hideout where the Pastor was rescued and two of the suspects were arrested, while two men in military camouflage escaped. On interrogation, the woman claimed to have been in a business relationship with the pastor, and that the pastor cheated her in the course of the business which made her to contact the three men to kidnap him to teach him a lesson. MEANWHILE, the state’s Commissioner of Police, Lanre Bankole, who praised his men for their quick response to the distress call, has ordered the immediate transfer of the suspects to the anti kidnapping unit of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID) for discreet investigation. He also directed that other members of the gang must be hunted and brought to book.