While the families, friends, associates and most Nigerians are happy over the release of seven kidnapped train passengers, new information has now surfaced as to how their release was secured.
Barely 24 hours after Sheikh Ahnad Gumi ‘s spokesman, Malam Tukur Mamu secured the release of 7 more abducted train passengers from terrorists who attacked the Kaduna bound AK9 train , sources close to the victims families have alleged that about N800 million in dollar equivalent was paid as ransom to the terrorists.
Although the lead negotiator, Tukur Mamu had reiterated that he secured the release of the 7 victims through mediation and was quite on whether ransom was paid, a source who said his brother was among the freed captives ,alleged that the sum of N100 million in dollar equivalent was paid as ransom before each victim.regained freedom.
According to the source ,one of the freed captives had offerd to singlehandedly pay the terrorists N200 million so that they release the entire remaining captives.
“But the terrorists rejected the offer and asked every hostage to pay 100 million and breathe the air of freedom.”
“Those who could not pay are still in the forest. The terrorists were claiming that they spent huge sum of money in taking care of the hostages over the past 3 months,”
“For each of the 6 Nigerian victims , their families paid N100 million .But the terrorists collected N200 million for the foreigner, a Pakistan nationale.”
“We learned that only N200 million was collected in Naira, but the remaining N600 million was paid in dollars.”
The source said lamented that “Since government couldn’t help and there were threats on the lives of the victims, we sold our property and other belongings to pay the money.”
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