The kidnapped Prelate of the Methodist Church of Nigeria, His Eminence Samuel Uche, has revealed that a total sum of N100 million was paid as ransom before he was released.
According to ChannelsTV, this was disclosed by Uche on Tuesday at a press conference in Lagos, where he said that the monies that were paid as ransom was arranged in 5 sacks of N20 million and were raised by the Methodist Church in Nigeria.
The Methodist Prelate also in his statement claimed that neither the Federal or State Government nor the military or police made any intervention during his short ordeal.
What you should know
- Recall that on May 29, the cleric and 2 other top church officials, namely the Bishop of Methodist Church, Owerri Diocese and the Prelate’s chaplain, were kidnapped along the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway in Umunneochi Local Government Area of Abia State.
- They were reportedly whisked away at about 2pm on their way from a church programme in Okigwe Imo State to Isuochi in Umu Nneochi Local Government Area of Abia State, with the kidnappers demanding N100 million ransom.
- The Methodist Church had after the kidnap appealed to the church’s faithful to raise N100 million, being ransom demanded by the abductors.
- However, the kidnapped victims were released on Monday, May 30, 2022, barely 24 hours after their abduction.
- The increasing incidents of kidnapping for ransom across the country, especially in the Northern and Southeastern part of the country, has become quite alarming, especially with the violent nature of the operations.
- Meanwhile, the Federal Government has taken a tough stance against ransom payments with the signing of a law criminalising ransom payments by President Muhammadu Buhari.
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Are we still in doubt about those behind this criminality?
Are we expecting this heist to end soon
Glad His Eminence is free, but so many troubling issues.
First, from the news reports it seems the Prelate simply directed the staff to take money from the church’s coffers (perhaps in addition to any other raised funds) to pay the ransom. That’s troubling if money was meant for evangelical work and for the poor.
Finally, not sure what the solution should be, but paying ransom merely GUARANTEES that more Nigerians will be kidnapped, as this has simply become a very lucrative full-time venture for these kidnappers.
in my opinion, criminalizing ransom payment without any serious or fruitful and sustained attempt to round up the criminals by the security forces, is irresponsible and insensitive on the part of the government. People are not happy and in fact struggle to pay these ransoms because they know that government security operatives are not properly equipped and disposed to come to their aid.
Ransom payment should neither be “criminalized” nor should it be normalized.
As I previously admitted, I’m not sure what the best solution would. Nonetheless, normalizing payments merely GUARANTEES more kidnapping, as we have already seen. As for “round up all criminals” that’s a pipe dream in a nation with only 250K police officers attempting to protect 200m citizens spread across a land area of almost 1m square kilometers.