Residents of Piko, a remote community in the Bwari Area Council of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), were thrown into panic when suspected gunmen invaded the area and allegedly kidnapped 13 persons.
It was gathered that the deadly operation which occurred at midnight Sunday in the community, lasted for over one hour, without any challenge from either the vigilance group or other security agencies. A close source to the community said that the Maidakin of the community, Chief John Jatau has confirmed that 10 residents were kidnapped from his domain, including 4 nomadic Fulani herdsmen. He noted that out of the four Fulani people, one escaped from the kidnappers’ custody. While he said that the kidnappers had demanded a ransom of N900 million Naira, he also gave the names of the kidnapped victims from his community.
According to him, the following people were kidnapped from his community and are still with their abductors, Nuhu anyiwoyi, Emmanuel Nuhu, Danjuma Ali, Parisa Numa, Ezekiel Jatau, Shekwosa Ezekiel, Roseline Samuel, Salome Jacob, Abyelo Ezra, and Ezra Male.
The source said: “The kidnapping incident occurred last night Sunday 05/05/2024, at about 11 pm. The kidnappers raided the village for about one hour without any response, or reaction from the community or outsiders, the major challenge the community faced last night in terms of communication with others was a result of no telecommunication network in the village, so they picked people’s house to house,
From the community, they picked about 13 people and later released three.
“The Madakin Piko informed me that they have called and they said they need the Ransom of 900,000,000 (nine hundred million). They picked about four Fulani people and one of them is released. The FCT Police Command Public Relations officer, Josephine Adeh who was contacted through phone did not respond to either phone or text messages.
