Ransom Was Paid To My Kidnappers ─ Olu Falae

A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Olu Falae, on Monday admitted that “certain amount of money” was paid as ransom before he was set free on Thursday by his abductors.

Falae’s statement contradicted the claim by the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Solomon Arase, that no ransom was paid before the elder statesman was rescued.

Falae, who was kidnapped by some suspected Fulani herdsmen on Monday, September 21, and released on Thursday September 24, 2015, however, did not disclose the amount paid. But he said it was when the money was fully paid that he was freed.

He stated this when a former Chief of Defence Staff, General Alani Akinrinade, paid him a visit at his Oba Ile, Akure, Ondo State residence on Monday .

He said, “There were six of them with three or four guns and every half an hour or so they will say, ‘Baba we are going to kill you; if you don’t give us money we are going to kill you.’

“On Wednesday one of them came and said, ‘look we are going to leave here on Thursday morning. Since we cannot leave you here alone, if we don’t get what we want, we are going to kill you.

“And they said they gave me until 3pm, and if at 3pm they don’t get the money, they would execute me. I thank God that at 21 minutes to 3pm, one of them came and said, ‘the money don complete.’

“When the hoodlums came, they slashed me with their cutlasses; they said I was not cooperating. They dragged me barefooted into the bush. After dragging me around for about two hours, they stopped somewhere and asked me to phone my wife and tell her that I had been kidnapped and taken out of Ondo State and that was a lie.

“It was about 2.30pm on Monday that we started walking with very few stops until 2am the following morning. I suspect that I must have covered a minimum of 15 kilometres. That morning, I did not eat anything. So all day I had no food, no water and I walked close to 15km. How I survived, I cannot really remember. At some point one of them gave me rubber slippers. We walked until about 2am. At some point they called for an okada(motorcycle). At about 2.30am the okada man took me way down; I had no clue where we were going. Finally they dumped me somewhere, where I was until I was released on Thursday.