Hamisu Wadume, the Taraba man
recently identified as a kidnap kingpin by the police, has denied any
involvement in abduction-for-ransom schemes, saying the police were wrong in
their categorisation of his activities.
Mr Wadume told police chiefs
during his initial interrogation at the Force Headquarters Tuesday afternoon
that he acquired his wealth primarily from fishing, which he said he did for
decades, according to multiple sources familiar with the questioning.
“But he also admitted to being a
419 by deceiving people with traditional medicine to get millions from them,”
police sources revealed. “He insisted that he was not involved in
kidnapping and the 419 was only a fraction of his large wealth.”
Mr Wadume was arrested on Monday
night in Kano and brought to the Force Headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday, ending
weeks of a manhunt for him.
Three police officers and a
civilian were killed by soldiers from 93 Battalion, who subsequently freed Mr
Wadume from the beleaguered police team. The Nigerian Army admitted its
personnel killed the police officers but denied it was deliberate, attributing
the tragedy to poor communication by the detectives.
The aftermath of the attack left
a broader national security bad blood, with the military issuing an advisory to
personnel to be wary of police officers across the country going forward.
President Muhammadu Buhari sued
for calm amongst concerned authorities and urged a thorough investigation into
the attack, an exercise that had since commenced and a report expected in about
two weeks.
Police, Army officers implicated
Manhunt for Mr Wadume got
underway separately from the top-flight joint police-military investigation
into his deadly escape, and officials now believe his arrest will throw up
fresh revelations that would aid all inquiries.
Following his arrival at the
Force Headquarters on Tuesday afternoon, Mr
Wadume told Inspector-General Muhammad Adamu and other officers that he had
maintained a close relationship with military and law enforcement authorities
in Taraba State for a long time.
He said he was friends with an
Army captain, Tijani Balarabe, as well as a police division crime officer in
Ibi, Taraba State, sources said.
Mr Wadume also said it was Mr
Balarabe who ordered soldiers to open fire on the police team and set him free,
before a welder machine was later brought in to break the police handcuffs.
“He said he started hearing
gunshots while the police officers were taking him away after his first arrest,
only to find later that they were soldiers who had come to rescue him,” our
source said. “He said the army captain asked him to claim he ran away with the
handcuffs by himself and not that soldiers helped him to break loose.”
Mr Wadume also made additional
‘confessional’ statements captured on video by the police, and additional
interrogation was being conducted to fully understand his activities.
He had been accused of kidnapping
an oil dealer who was later freed after paying N100 million ransom.
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