The Nigeria Police Force, Kwara state command and the Vigilantee Group of Nigeria engaged in a war of word over the process that led to the rescue of the abducted Turkish expatriates.
The Turkish working with a company in Edu local government were kidnapped in Gbugbu village on 19th of July, 2019 a d rescued a week after.
While announcing the rescue operation, the police force siad they worked tirelessly with local Vigilante in the area to ensure the victims were released without ransom.
However, the Vigilantee Group of Nigeria has kicked against the statement saying they were fully part of the rescue operation but the police force is not giving them the credit.
They alleged, in a statement jointly signed by the Provost and zonal commander of the Edu/Patigi zonal command of group, that the DPO of the Lafiagi police command is aiming at using the rescue operation as a way of getting service promotion.
The group, while narrating their account of the operation, said, “Prior to the kidnap of the victims, the Nigeria police command kwara state notify the Vigilante group of Nigeria Edu/Patigi zonal command in other to help them in rescue operations of the Turkish that were working in Edu local government which is supplying BUA group with mined stones.”
“The VGN started the investigation by setting a Tac team consisting of 30 of its personnel to start the search in the forest and another group that will partner with the police on investigation within the communities in case if any suspect is resisting arrest or with any sensitive information which can only be obtain by VGN personnel.”
They continued, “The police started stop and search and extorting money from the people plying Patigi to Share express way illegally. Due to their careless effort on their mission, we thereby setup more tac team that will search the forest of Patigi Emirates consisting of 150 VGN personnel and some of the police with us even though they choose to be far behind us at the forest. At the end we have no authentic lead on the forest.”
“Our intelligence on the following day saw some of their member buying some food stuffs and mosquito net. Then two of them were track down at village called Gada belonging to Patigi emirate. They confess they are among of the group but there is one of there member called Tambaya, he his the supplier of the weapons use in the operation. Tambaya was arrested and he denied the allegations but they insist he his the supplier of the weapons. By 9am the kidnapper called and ask for release of their members arrested or the Turkish kidnapped die.”
“The wizard of the first order (NNASA’AGI PATIGI) called on the leader among of the suspects arrested and prepared charm and cast a spell on him and later released him and he returned back to camp and followed by VGN tact team of 45 personnel. And the Turkish held around Esanlu Kuturu village area was released by the suspect released due to spell cast on him which was received by our members at neighboring village and later taken to hotel for safety. The Miyeti Allah Fulani group Leader and SARS operatives were inform about the development by our zonal commander and they came and took them without notifying our zonal commander to gbugbu and later to Ilorin.”
The private security body while concluding statement emphasised that, “With all the above narration of how the operations is carried out, we are now being taken as a irresponsible group of people for not appreciating our hard work on this operation.”
Reacting to this, the Kwara state Commisoner of Police, Kayode Egbetokun insist they did not have any contact with the VGN throughout the rescue operation.
Egbetokun said, “We worked with the local vigilante in that area who were not members of VGN and I have already thanked them for their roles. It is true, we were ready to work with everybody who can be of help. We will not release the blow by blow account of the rescue operation to the public yet because we might still need the strategy in future but what the so called VGN is claiming is false and quite misleading.”
“In my press statement,
I thanked everyone who cooperated with us in that operation. I even thanked the people of Kwara state. If however VGN has played any role not known to the police, I hereby acknowledge that role and thank them specially. In case there are other persons or groups who also feel they played roles that are not known to us, we thank them specially and acknowledge their roles specially.”
“In the rescue of the abducted Turks, taking personal glory was never our primary concern. We were absolutely committed to getting the captives freed and we are happy we did. People are at liberty to make whatever claim they want to make but they should note that it will not fetch them money from Government because Government is already aware of who did what”.