Yenagoa- The State Security Service, SSS, said the family of the kidnapped monarch of Ogbogoro Community in Bayelsa, Godwin Igbodo, paid N12.5 million ransom to his abductors to secure his release.

The Assistant Director of the SSS, Mr. Didacus Egbedi, said this while parading one of the suspects, Promise Adeghe, at the command’s headquarters in Yenagoa on Monday.

Egbedi said the suspect, a native of Azuzuama in the Southern-Ijaw Local Government Area was arrested early in December in Yenagoa in connection with the abduction.

He disclosed that Igbodo was released on September 27 at Abonema River in the Abonema Local Government Area of Rivers, after the payment of N12.5 million ransom and recharge cards worth N150,000 by family members of Igbodo.

He said: “Adeghe had collected the sum of N50, 000 as initial payment from the ransom and was to collect the balance when he returns to Port Harcourt; unfortunately he was arrested before his intended return to Port Harcourt.”

Egbedi also said that the suspect had mentioned three accomplices, whose names he gave as Mikel, Osuo and Kingdom, as being behind the abduction.

The suspect, he added, would be charged to court on December 6.

Adeghe, 24, while responding to questions confirmed that he was an ex-militant in the “Young Shall Grow Camp.“

Meanwhile a family source confided in NAN that Igbodo was recuperating in London after the incident.

NAN recalls that Igbodo was kidnapped on September 1 at his palace at Ogbogoro Community and later regained his freedom on September 27 after spending four weeks in captivity.