From Molly Kilete, Abuja
The police force headquarters in Abuja, Wednesday paraded the mastermind and kidnappers who killed Pa Dariye Defwan, father of the former governor of Plateau State, Senator Joshua Dariye.
Incidentally the leader of the group Jethro Ngusen, 57, popularly known as Baba Tuwo, hails from the same village Horop, in Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau state with the deceased.
He said he abducted the old man whose son had been a two term governor of the sate and a senator of the federal republic to make money and nothing more. Besides he said that the village where they come from have a lot of unemployed youths while the ex governor and his family live in affluence.
However he said things got messed up after one of the boys he hired killed the 93 year old man.
Ngusen, and his gang members were arrested by operatives of the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Team(IRT), and paraded by the force public relations officer Frank Mba, at the force headquarters Abuja.
Mba, told newsmen that Ngusen recruited some indigenes of the village alongside five Fulani herdsmen who are not on the run to carry out the deadly act.
Upon kidnapping the old man, Ngusen and his gang kept him in their custody for about ten days negotiating with his children who paid a whooping N10million as ransom. They were said to have killed him after collecting the money from their relatives and end up killing him.
Mba, further stated that Ngusen, upon receiving the money from the deceased children, shared it among the members with least getting N400,000, for a job well done.
The suspects who took part in the kidnap and killing of Pa Dariye include Titus Ezekiel, 35, Dauda Isa, 30, Sunday Ibrahim, 35, Mangut Shunwa, 30, Henry Amos, 35, Yau Saidu, 40 and Abubakar Mohammed, 18.
In an interview with journalists, one of the suspects, Sunday said he was recruited alongside other members of the gang by Ngusen with a promise to get a handsome reward.
He said “this assignment was given to me by Jethro Ngusen that baba son Joshua, was a one time governor for eight years secondly he was a onetime senator for eight years and thirdly the youths around the community are unemployed. So we should kidnap him so we can make money.
We are eight that were arrested but we had some Fulani men who I don’t know their names that were also part of our group.
Continuing, Sunday said “Pa Dariye stayed with us for about eight days and Abubakar was the one who took care of him while in custody. He also cooked for him.”
On him part, Abubakar told newsmen that he cooked rice and beans for the deceased while.
Upon collecting the ransom from the relatives of the old man, Sunday said they took it to Ngusen, who then shared the money among them.
Also speaking, another member of the gang, Mangut, said he was ordered by the leader of the gang to kill the victim after the ransom was paid. He said although he had never handled a gun before in his life, he was given one with which he used to snuff out life of the old man. He said the weapon an AK 47 riffle was provided by Ngusen.
Jethro in an interview said “actually if you give your children assignment and they mess up all the blame would come to you. I gave the job to these children and they went and messed up the whole thing. The mission was not for them to kill him after collecting ransom. So it has happened I ask the police and the family to forgive me because it is not good to collect ransom from a person and you kill the person.”
Mba, also paraded a three man gang, led by Emmanuel Joel, 42, Ayuba Joel, 30 and Hassan Umar who specializes in selling illegal weapons to bandits, kidnappers, terrorists, armed robbers and other criminal groups. They were arrested at Tunga Awe, a border community between Nasarawa and Taraba states. They were found to be in possession of 26 AK 47 magazines, one AK49 riffle and 14 live ammunitions at the time of their arrest.
Joel who confessed to the crime told newsmen that, he was living in the forest with Fulani bandits before they were arrested while trying to sell Ak47 rifles magazines.
Mba, also parade one Peter Moses and Sadiq Abubakar also known as Samuel Johnson on the social media who specializes in cyber kidnapping and rape.
Sadiq, who happens to be the gang leader is said to be notorious for luring unsuspecting women on the social media to his house, where he takes them hostage for ransom and rape them.
In an interview with newsmen, Sadiq an indigene of Ikogi state who said he is only six months in the crime, confessed to have made N500,000.
He said he decided to make women his target because “Women are easy to deceive”.