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In a bid to give the cases on the arraignment of three persons suspected to have abducted 20 prospective corps members on October 1, 2026 in Umunoha, Mbaitoli Local Government Area (LGA) of Imo state and two others suspected to have kidnapped four other people accelerated hearing, the High Court sitting in Owerri and headed by Justice Emeka Orafu, Thursday, adjourned the cases to Tuesday 27th, Wednesday 28th and Thursday 29th of October, 2026.
According to Justice Orafu, the up coming dates would give enough time for further cross-examination of witnesses in the two cases HOU/22C/2026 and HOU/23C/ 2026 to ensure quick dispensation of justice.
However, during cross-examination on Thursday, a representative of the Department of State Service (DSS) who arrested the abductors of the corps members, told the court how the suspects abducted the corpers and how their abductors were arrested.
He said the corps members began their journey from Ibadan, Oyo state at about 6.30 hours in the morning of 30th of October, 2026, travelling to Abia and Akwa Ibom states to catch up with their National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) camping formalities, before they were stopped at Umunoha in Imo state and taken hostage.
He further said that they had stopped over at Onitsha, Anambra state, the same day before continuing their journey the next day being 1st of October, 2026. And on getting to Umunoha, Imo state, their two buses came under attack and they were taken hostage by the kidnappers who were wielding AK 47 rifles and other dangerous weapons.
He said it was intelligence analysis by the DSS that led to the return of the corpers after ransom payments were made.
He disclosed that “It was between 10th and 14th of October, 2026 that the three suspects, namely, Mohammed Aliyu, Usman Aliyu and Babangida Aliyu were arrested.
“We used intelligence gathering and record checks, took each person’s statements and took down he statements of the hostages, including a driver of one of the buses carrying the corpers, to arrive at our position.
“We equally paraded the 3 accused persons before the witnesses, conducted data analysis, checked the mobile phones of the accused persons and the witnesses and hostages were able to identify the suspects”.
The DSS representative further said that one of the drivers of the buses, identified as Sunday Udoh and three of the abducted corpers – Esther Oladipo, Mary Makinde and Timi Serah, were able to recognise and identify the suspects and even have descriptions of those at large, and that even the defendants, from their statements, had admitted participating in the kidnap act.
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