The sisters, aged 14 and 16, have spent 12 days in captivity. They were forcibly taken away from their home by unknown gunmen at about 1 am on January 28, 2024.
The abductors of two teenage sisters who were kidnapped by bandits at Guita community in the Bwari Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja have reduced the ransom demanded for the victims from N30 million to N5 million.
The father of the victims, Adeola Sunday, disclosed this to SaharaReporters during an interview in Abuja.
The sisters, aged 14 and 16, have spent 12 days in captivity. They were forcibly taken away from their home by unknown gunmen at about 1 am on January 28, 2024.
The kidnappers initially seized three people including their brother but later released the boy to return home to arrange for the ransom.
Adeola said the kidnappers agreed to collect the sum of N5 million in exchange for her daughters during the last telephone conversation he had with them.
He said they also threatened him and insisted that they would not accept anything less than N5 million as ransom.
Adeola said, “Since the incident happened on Sunday, January 28, I have been discussing with them. They initially demanded a ransom of N30 million. I have been appealing to them that I am not a rich man, I am a poor person. I am a civil servant, a messenger in the office and I don't have that N30 million.
"The final one they said was N5 million. They said they would not remove ‘shishi’ (anything) from that N5 million. They even mentioned it - ‘shishi’. They said that anything less than that, they would only release one of my daughters to me and go away with the second one.
"The Commissioner of Police was even in my house on Thursday.”
Adeola, therefore, called on President Bola Tinubu’s government and Nigerians to come to his aid to secure the release of his daughters.
The community was thrown into confusion on January 28, 2024, when six gunmen kidnapped the girls and took them to the forest and the hilly part of the area.
The community last week staged a protest at the office of the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, over the bad state of the roads in their area, which they identified as one of the factors responsible for insecurity in the area.
They also called on the minister to construct an overhead bridge on the railway track in the area, saying it had become a death trap for the residents