22-year-old Chiamaka Ukeje a member of a kidnapping gang has reportedly stated to the Police that she kidnapped and sold a five-year-old girl just to “get back at her father.”
She has been described as the “arrowhead” of a four-woman ex-convict kidnapping gang, she alleges that she sold a baby girl for N400,000.
The Police in Imo State arrested the four women suspected of kidnapping and selling five-year-old Chinagorom Ndukwe, whom Chiamaka said is the daughter of her uncle.
Chiamaka reportedly hails from Umuduru in Isiala Mbano Local Government Area of Imo State.
The women reportedly served various jail terms in Federal Prisons, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, where they met and allegedly formed a kidnapping gang.
On January 22 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, they were arrested by agents of the Scorpion Squad of the command who acted on information.
Other suspects include Sandra Ezuka, 26, from Ozoro in Isoko LGA, Delta State; Ruth Solomon, 41, Umuehie Anara in the Isiala Mbano LGA; and Joy Edum, 45, from Abua, Odua LGA of Rivers.
The Imo State Commissioner of Police, Chris Ezike, during a Parade of the suspects for various crimes ranging from kidnapping, child trafficking, armed robbery and cultism on Thursday, stated that the four child trafficking suspects have made confessional statements.
The victim was recovered from the buyer, a Joy Edum, resident of Rumwara Obiakpo, Rivers State.
Ezike said, “The suspects, who are all residents of Rivers State, have made useful statements to the Police, confessing to the crime; while the child has since been reunited with her family.”
When interviewed by newsmen, the prime suspect, 22-year-old Chiamaka, said she kidnapped the child “in order to get at her father.”
Chiamaka claimed that her own father and the father of Baby Chinagorom had some “problems” and that kidnapping Chinagorom was her own way of punishing the girl’s father. She described the man as her “uncle.”