The two pr*stitutes (above) who led a seven-man gang of kidnappers to abduct the child of a Lagos businessman have been arrested by men of SARS, Lagos State Police Command. Also arrested were five other members of the gang. Their arrest followed the decision of the victim’s father to write a petition to the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, asking that SARS men should be involved in the case.
Narrating her role in the kidnap saga, one of the two pr*stitutes and initiator of the crime, Esther Phillips (22) said: “My father is from Ondo but I grew up in Imo State. My mother is from Ugwu Aba village in Orlu town, Imo State. I was a student of Lagos State Polytechnic, where I was studying Mass Communication before I dropped out at 200 level due to financial problems.
I am even the breadwinner of my family. “It was the financial problem that pushed me into pr*stitution. I started going to night clubs to look for men who were seeking fun. I used to charge N2000 for short time s*x. But for full time, I used to charge between N3,000 and N4,000. I stayed in a hotel in Sango-Ota, Ogun State, where I met with men on short time and full time bases. Because I was finding it difficult to pay for the hotel room in Sango-Otta, I relocated to an uncompleted building in the town.
I used to pay N1,000 naira for the room every day, whether I met with men or not. I also used to give the hotel manager N500 any day there was good business. “When I started going to night clubs, some men used to beat me and, at times, if they were three or four, all of them would like to sleep with me. Later, I stabilised and made some money from prostitution. I used to send money to my mother in Imo State and take care of my younger ones because our father was not helping the family in anyway.
This made it difficult for me to save enough money. “When I had managed to raise up to N800,000, I started thinking of how to procure a ticket and a visa to travel abroad. It was during that time that I met one Wale and Bayo at Ikeja to help me travel out of the country. But they gave me fake passport and visa. When I got to the airport, it was God who saved me from being arrested. “I then went to the Ikeja police station and reported Wale and Bayo for duping me.
The investigating police officer then was the late Superintendent of Police called John. The case dragged for long and became boring, as nothing concrete was done to retrieve my money, while any of the people I had borrowed money from were on my neck. I became frustrated and confused. “I was in this state of frustration when I met a half-cast guy (name withheld), who was so nice and caring. All I needed to continue with my bid to travel abroad was N200,000.
I started thinking that if I could kidnap this half cast, his father, a stinking billionaire, would give any amount to get his only child back. “I called my close friend in pr*stitution job, Patricia, and told her about it. We discussed it and she said it was a good shortcut to big money. I told Patricia that I had nobody with whom I could do the job and she said she knew somebody called Kingsley Okenwa aka Dragon. “She contacted Dragon and he said he could do it perfectly.
I then told Dragon that from the investigations I had done, the half-cast was the only son of his father. “I told Dragon that the half-cast would be driving a jeep by himself from Opebi and that I would go there to meet him. He had told me that he wanted to sleep with Patricia and I together on that day for full s*xual satisfaction. I told Dragon and his men to wait for us at Iyana School Bus Stop. “We got to Iyana School Bus Stop around 4.30 pm. I pretended that I wanted to ease myself. The half-cast parked the jeep by the roadside and I came down.
Before I could bend down, three men, namely Dragon and two others named Black and Osi appeared with daggers and entered the Murano Jeep. They forced the half-cast to move to the back seat and Osi took over the steering. That was sometime in February this year. “We drove to a room in Iyana and the five of us stayed there. The half-cast was not chained.
Rather, he sat comfortably with the television on. The generator was on and the bed was okay. I even wanted to make love with him there just to make him feel at home, but he was not in the mood for that. The room was in a face-me-I-face-you building, but almost all the tenants used to go out for one work or the other in the morning, making the building desolate in the day time.
“He knew that I had planned the kidnap, so he asked why I was risking his life because of common N200,000, which he said he would have given me without any stress if I had asked him. We demanded N10 milion from his father, but Dragon later collected only N5 million and five of us shared it.” SECOND GIRL The second suspect, Patricia Nna (25), also a prost*tute and indigene of Aba, Abia State, said she was a casual worker at Amingo, a company that manufactures hair attachment.
She said: “One day, I fainted at the factory due to hard work. So, I decided to resign and I was paid off. After staying without work for some time, the money got finished and I started going to night clubs to look for men... I had earlier asked Dragon to help me look for a job in any hotel. But after telling him about the kidnap deal, he said I should forget about getting a hotel job because the kidnapping deal was big.”
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