By Susan Edeh
A daring attempt to make a dream fortune by a six-member gang of kidnappers in Bauchi was aborted as nemesis caught up with them following their arrest by men of the State Security Service in the state.

The gang which abducted the 11-year-old daughter of a former registrar in Bauchi, was made up of two women and four men.

*Free at last....Jamila flanked by her parents and a relation after she was rescued

It could be recalled that just after the kidnap of the son of a House of Representatives aspirant, Garba Dahiru in the state, another incident of kidnapping reared its ugly face.

This time around, Jamila, daughter of a former registrar of the Corporate Affairs Commission became a victim, when unknown gunmen stormed their residence along Maiduguri bye-pass, at 7:30 a.m just as the mother was taking the girl and her brother to school.

Vanguard Metro gathered that the kidnappers initially attempted to abduct the son of the former registrar, but the boy sensing their intention, took to his heels and escaped.

Following their inability to kidnap the boy, the kidnappers  made for 11-year-old Jamila.

Narrating the incident  to Vanguard Metro in an interview, Hajiya Sadiya Ahmed Mustafa, Jamila’s mother said: “I was taking my children to school that early morning when I saw one man wearing a jacket with a gun in his hand.

He then asked me to stop; I quickly surrendered thinking that they wanted to snatch my car.

As I was handing over the key of the car to him, another man opened the other door of the car and asked my son to come out and lie down. I told my boy to obey their instructions, but my son played it smart and ran away.

When they could not catch the boy, they then made for my 11-year-old daughter and drove away with her on a motorcycle after they fired two gun shots in the air. The abductors did not demand for anything, but they collected my phone number and promised to call my husband”.

After reporting the incident to the Bauchi State Police Command, efforts to trace the missing girl intensified as all security operative worked round the clock to ensure that the kidnappers did not get away with their crime.

It was a long, anxious wait for the parents of the kidnapped girl  during the period she was  in the custody of her abductors. According to them,   at a point, they lost faith in the security operatives and sought for  divine intervention through special prayers that were offered on her behalf both at Jamila’s School and from good spirited individuals who were concerned.

God was soon to answer the concerted prayers as  luck ran out on the kidnap gang as a combined team of security agencies in Bauchi last Thursday night stormed their hideout and rescued Jamila  two weeks after she was kidnapped.

She was found among the suspected kidnappers at their hideout in Wuntin-Dada, Jos road, on the outskirt of Bauchi, the state capital, 10 kilometers from her father’s house where she was abducted.

The team comprising soldiers, police men and State Security Service agents, arrested six suspected kidnappers made up of four men, two nursing mothers (wives of the kidnappers) and two  young boys. But their leader was said to have travelled to Gombe State when his stronghold in Bauchi was invaded that Thursday at 8.30 pm.

Among the weapons recovered from the place were 221 live ammunitions, pistols, some locally made bombs, general purpose  assault rifles, and one sub-machine gun. Other items recovered were daggers, explosives, certificates, assorted uniforms, including Nigerian Army camouflages and cell phones with special ringtones.

Briefing newsmen in his office, Bauchi State Director of State Security Service explained: “We carried out covert operations and in the process stumbled on the unexpected: The weapons you have seen outside.There were no deaths; two of the suspected kidnappers arrested sustained minor head injuries while trying to escape, as they were taken unawares by the security operatives”.

In an interview with newsmen, an elated Ahmed Al-Mustapha accompanied by Jamila, his wife, and a relative thanked God, and commended ‘’Nigerian security operatives for keeping their promise to rescue and bring back my daughter to me’’.

The retired Registrar-General of the CAC revealed thus: “It was a traumatic experience when my daughter was kidnapped, though the security authorities kept assuring me of her return. It was very tempting to talk to them but I resisted their telephone calls for negotiation, as I was advised by the security operatives.

It is not actually poverty that is driving people to do things like this for there are other countries that are poorer than Nigeria, yet such crimes are not committed there’’.

He advised parents or relatives of kidnapped persons who find themselves in this kind of trauma, to exercise patience and confidence, in allowing the security operatives to do their work.

A confidential source close to the Al-Mustapha family told  Vanguard Metro that ‘’they asked us to pay N1.5 million but I think the security men were handling it  so they eventually came down to N1million and it was in the process of collecting the money that they ran into the security trap”.

Jamila is the second kidnapped victim that has been rescued from her captors. The first was a son of House of Representatives aspirant, Garba Dahiru during the last Ramadan.