17th August, 2012
JETHRO IBILEKE/Benin
It was one of those mysteries of life: a person is kidnapped; somewhere along the line the kidnap goes awry and the victim is set free from the abductors, without the victim having to pull any punches or ransom being paid.
Annabel Erikowa, a 26 year-old woman resident in Lagos State has just had a similar experience.
Kidnapped in Lagos by four armed men, she was rescued by an accident involving the vehicle conveying her and her abductors from Lagos to an unknown destination.
Annabel who works in her father’s resort located at Ibeju-Lekki area of Lagos State was abducted by four gunmen last week. Then they forced her into their vehicle after masking her.
The kidnappers were heading to unknown destination when the vehicle in which they conveyed their victim crashed around Ofosu town, along Benin-Lagos highway.
The Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of operations, Edo State Command, Mr. Agberebi Egbuson disclosed that the Police in Iguobazuwa division on receipt of a distress call of an accident, rushed to the scene.
They were however amazed when four of the five accident victims they were supposed to rescue took to their heels on sighting the police.
“When the policemen approached the scene, four young men around the vehicle took to their heels. We later realized that they were actually kidnappers as a young girl was found inside,” the DCP disclosed.
Narrating her ordeal in the hands of her abductors, Annabel said she was in her father’s hotel in Lagos when four heavily armed men ordered her to a waiting vehicle and later blind folded her while they embarked on a long journey.
She could not, however, ascertain what led to the accident or where it occurred but she affirmed that police arrival to the accident scene made her abductors to abandon her.
Annabel has since been reunited with her family.