A 12-year-old boy, David Adedayo, who escaped from a kidnapping gang in Kuje, Abuja, has recounted how his sister was killed in the forest after their family was abducted from their home.
The kidnappers attacked their home on August 23 and abducted David, his mother, Mrs. Nancy Adedayo; his sister, Damilola; and their maid, Jennifer David.
Nancy was, however, released an hour later to coordinate ransom payments.
Narrating the incident at a briefing in Abuja on Friday by the Force Intelligence Department Special Tactical Squad, which announced the arrest of seven suspected members of the syndicate, David said the ordeal began around midnight.
“It was about 12:30 in the morning. Then my sister was working as our house help. She woke all of us up that there are people at the gate,” he said.
He said the attackers took the family to the master bedroom before marching them out.
“They released my mom. They told her to go and pay the amount of N200m,” he said.
According to him, they were taken up a mountain and held for days.
“They continued doing that same thing for about five days. They would take us down the mountain, they would bring us back up,” he said.
The boy said Jennifer collapsed during the trek and was thrown into a stream.
“They now covered her body with leaves, thinking that she was dead, but she was not actually dead,” he said.
He said his sister was later killed after seizing a cutlass from one of the kidnappers.
“She now cut the hand of one of them. Then, from there, they got angry. They beat her. They threw rocks at her. Unfortunately, she died. They threw her off the cliff and nobody can survive that kind of fall,” he said.
The boy said the kidnappers then tied him to a tree and left.
“They tied me to a tree, saying that they want to go and buy coke, but they will soon come back. So, I managed to untie myself from the tree,” he said.
He said he climbed down the mountain and spent the night near a stream, adding that the next day he met a herdsman, whom he told, “Kuje, Kuje.”
“The man led him to hunters, who took him to a village chief. Vigilantes then took him to a hospital in Danfara, Kuje, where his uncles found him,” he said.
He noted that he had escaped before any ransom was collected.
“They even told me that if I do nonsense, they will kill me the way they killed my sister,” he said.
Speaking, the commander, ACP Victor Godfrey, said he led the team and launched an intelligence-led investigation that resulted in the arrest of two suspects at Rijana Community in Kaduna State.
He added that five others were subsequently arrested at Sagbon Lugbe in the FCT.
“Acting on actionable intelligence, operatives of the FID-STS, led by ACP Victor Godfrey, in collaboration with vigilante operatives and other security agencies, arrested seven members of a notorious kidnapping syndicate at Rijana Community, Kaduna State, and Sagbon Lugbe, FCT, Abuja,” Godfrey said. “The operation also led to the recovery of the decomposing body of their victim, Miss Oluwodamilola Adedayo, in a forest at Tukuba, Kuje, FCT.”
He said the family paid N16.2m for a victim’s release, but the kidnappers demanded a further N50m.
Godfrey also linked the syndicate to the September 24, 2026, abduction of a businessman, Mr. John Ali, in Kuje, adding that he was released after paying N3m and providing recharge cards worth N100,000.
He gave the names of the suspects as: Ishaka Abdullahi (aka Langalanga), 27; Abdullahi Dabo, 42; Abubakar Jibrin (aka Mai-Laya), 20; Barahu Ibrahim (aka Black), 24; Sani Mohammed, 24; Alidu Lawal (aka De Jaguar), 18; and Yakubu Abubakar (aka Soldier), 28.