Twenty-seven traders believed to be travelling on the Kaduna-Abuja Highway to the commercial of Aba in Abia State to make some purchases have been kidnapped at the Kaduna end of the highway by gunmen who are demanding N27 million ransom, N1 million for each trader before they will be released.
Abubakar Babao, president, Arewa Youth Traders Association, who confirmed the development in Kano, disclosed that the incident occurred on Sunday night when kidnappers shot the tyre of the luxury bus the traders were travelling in and abducted them after the bus was forced to stop.
“The traders were on their way to Aba on Sunday so as to buy their goods on Monday morning and return to Kano on Tuesday morning, when kidnappers shot at their luxury bus on Kaduna-Abuja Highway,” Babao said.
“It is sad that most of them are small scale traders. Some of them don’t even have more than N400,000. Two of the boys were just recently settled by their master for them to be on their own; they were given N500,000 each. Where will people like that raise the money the kidnappers are demanding as ransom?” he asked.
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Babao said the kidnappers initially demanded N50m for the release of the 27 young traders after establishing communication with the victims’ families. However, they are now asking for N27m for all of the traders to regain their freedom.
The Arewa Youth Traders Association of Nigeria president appealed for the release of the abducted 27 young traders as the security situation is already impacting negatively on the business environment in the state.
Kidnapping for ransom by bandits and gunmen has been on the increase in recent times on the highway, a development that informed the recent deployment of a detachment of the special force and two helicopters on a daily patrol by the leadership of the Nigerian Air Force.
Recently, about 16 people from Dambatta Local Government Area of the state who were travelling from Abuja to Kano lost their lives in a motor accident on the highway when gunmen suspected to be kidnappers shot the tyre of the cars they were travelling in.
