The family of the abducted Al-Kadriyar girls have contradicted the claim by the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) that the victims were rescued.
It would be recalled that on Tuesday, January 2, 2024, some kidnappers abducted six girls of the Al-Kadriyar family along with 17 other people in the Bwari area of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
While four of the abducted 23 people were gruesomely murdered last week, the remaining 19 regained their freedom in the late hours of Saturday, January 20. Among the released victims were the four Al-Kadriyar girls.
However, the police, through its FCT spokesperson, SP Josephine Adeh, quoted the FCT Police Commissioner, Haruna Garba, as saying that the Force’s concerted efforts, with the troops of the Nigerian Army, rescued the kidnapped victims from the Kajuru forest.
Debunking the claim that the victims were rescued, one of the uncles to the Al-Kadriyar girls, Abbas, who picked them up from the forest, in an interview with Punch, said, "We paid a ransom for the release of our girls. A ransom was paid, and the police were not involved."
Continuing, he noted, "The children called me, and I went to pick them up. On my way, I saw soldiers at the junction, and the bush is a very thick bush along the Gurara Dam, so I had to call the attention of the soldiers to follow me to the spot where we could locate our children.
"The bandits left them there to call us to come and pick them up. But we paid a ransom, and no police were involved. The children were not rescued by anyone, the soldiers only assisted me in locating where they were and they provided cover for us."
Corroborating Abass’ account, another uncle to the girls, Sheriffdeen, said, "My elder brother was the one who went to pick up the girls on Saturday, days after we’ve paid the ransom. But the soldiers escorted them back home."
The amount the kidnappers collected as ransom to free the girls is yet-to-be disclosed.