Lagos monarch suspended for faking own kidnap

• Police parades disgraced monarch, brother

A traditional ruler of Shangisha in Magodo area of Lagos State, Chief Yusuf Ogundare has been suspended by the Lagos State Government for faking his own kidnap.

National Daily gathered that Chief Yusuf Ogundare allegedly faked his own kidnapped on July 5 along Center for Management Development (CMD) Road in Ikosi-Isheri Local Council Development Area (LCDA) of the State.

In a memo with reference number OLGAS.83/S./Vol.1 dated July 13, 2017 addressed to the Sole Administrator of Ikosi-Isheri LCDA and signed by the State’s Commissioner for Local Government and Community Affairs, Hon Teslim Folami, Governor Ambode directed Ogundare to stop parading himself henceforth as the Baale of the community till further notice.

Ogundare’s suspension was approved by the Governor moments after the Lagos State Police Command paraded him alongside his younger brother, Mohammed Adams for conspiring to fake the alleged kidnap.

Speaking while parading the two suspects, the State’s Commissioner of Police, Mr. Fatai Owoseni said the Command on July 5 received the report of Ogundare’s alleged kidnap, and immediately swung into action in collaboration with other security agencies especially the Department of State Service (DSS).

Giving details of how Ogundare was apprehended, Owoseni said: “On July 11 at about 10pm, a team of RRS patrol officers working around Alausa had sighted a vehicle drop a male adult in a suspicious manner close by Shoprite along the Secretariat road.

The speed with which that car drove off attracted them to that spot and fortunately before they got to the spot, the car had taken off and a quick enquiry revealed that it was the Baale that was allegedly kidnapped.

“While Ogundare was being debriefed, he sold a dummy that the kidnappers dropped him off but unknowingly to him, it had been found out that on the 5th of July, the day he was allegedly kidnapped in Lagos, investigation had revealed that he was driving around in Ibadan around Ashi; he went to Ilorin, he went to Iwo, he was just on a frolic.”

Adams, Owoseni said, had told security agencies that he was with the Baale at CMD Hotel when some people who claimed they wanted to buy land whisked them away and later dropped him, but investigation revealed that he (Adams) was not at any time in the hotel with the Baale but was only at the restaurant of the hotel, and after some minutes, he left, and the wife of the Baale actually drove the Venza car allegedly used to abduct the supposed victim into the hotel.

The CP added that after the suspects were confronted with the indisputable facts, they had no choice than to confess faking the kidnap.

He said the objective of the suspects was to falsely accuse the Oba of Shangisha as the brain behind the kidnapping, which they indeed did, as a vengeance to him being installed the Oba instead of Ogundare, and also embarrassed the State Government and as well as security agencies for arresting him (Ogundare) when he falsely displayed the plate number of Oba of Shangisha on his car.

Also speaking, the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Adeniji Kazeem said it was disheartening that while the State Government and security agencies were working round the clock to secure the release of the children kidnapped from Igbonla Model College since May, some unscrupulous persons deemed it fit to raise false alarm.

He said Section 5 of the anti-kidnapping Law prescribes that “a person who overtly or covertly puts himself forward to be kidnapped or abducted by another for the purpose of extracting money or ransom, from another or for any other reason commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction to fourteen (14) years imprisonment.”