Juliana Francis
A young Nigerian, Salahatu Haruna, has narrated how he became a killer and kidnapper, while still living with his parents in Kaduna State.
Haruna started singing like a bird after his arrest by Operatives of the Inspector-General of Police Special Response Team (IRT) headed by a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Abba Kyari.
He was arrested for orchestrating the abduction of his brother and the murder of his seven-year-old nephew.
Among his father’s children, he was the only one that took to crime. What happened? Where did his parents go wrong with him?
Haruna is a farmer, who deals in tomatoes. His mother is one of his father’s two wives. While he’s among his father’s 12 children.
He said: “I organised my elder brother’s abduction because I had no money or food to feed my wives and nine children. I equally do not have enough money to spend as a man. I was too ashamed to beg my brother for money because there is a sort of rivalry between his wives and mine. We live in the same compound and I had been monitoring him to know when he would have large sum of money. When I noticed that he had money, I invited three of my friends; Julie, Usman and Ikira. I told them that I had liked them to kidnap my brother for ransom. Ikira brought an Ak-47 rifle and we agreed on the day to strike. On the fateful night they came, I did as we had planned, but the moment they broke down his door, my brother’s seven-year-old son ran out of the house to know what was happening and Ikira shot him on the head. The boy died on the spot. Julie, Usman and Ikira took my brother away into the bush. People came out of their houses with torch to find out what was going. I went into my brother’s house and discovered my nephew was dead. I started crying. We carried his corpse into the house. My father came to inspect it and instructed us to bury him. A search party was formed to search for my brother, but it was futile. Everybody was overwhelmed with the killing of my nephew. The kidnappers later contacted one of my uncles. That was exactly eight days after my brother’s abduction. The kidnappers asked for N3million as ransom. We negotiated and it was brought down to N1million. One of our relatives, Musa was the person that took the N1million ransom to the kidnappers. My brother was released 10 days after captivity. Four days later, one of the kidnappers, Usman, brought my share of the ransom, N200, 000. I gave N20, 000 to Isa and Umaru because they knew about the operation. They were also the people that kept the guns for the kidnappers before they struck. I used N80, 000 to cultivate tomatoes, which were later destroyed by flood. I bought a land with N100, 000. The incident occurred four months ago and until my arrest, my family members were not aware that I masterminded the kidnapping of my elder brother and killing of his son.”
His villager members suspected and reported him to the police when they noticed he was spending money lavishly.
First Published 2020
