Terrorists on October 6th, 2022 released all twenty-three remaining passengers abducted from a Kaduna-bound train on March 28, 2022.
Recall that terrorists on the 28th of March attacked an Abuja/Kaduna-bound train and abducted 100 passengers. The terrorists, however, released the passengers in batches, while ransom exchanged hands in the process of their release. To secure the release of the victims, Islamic cleric, Ahmed Gumi visited the terrorists in their hideout and pleaded with the government to facilitate the requests of the bandits. The relationship between Gumi and the bandits saw the government and security agencies commence a discreet investigation. Not long after Gumi pull out of the release process, his media assistant, Tukur Mamu ( publisher of Desert Herald) assumed the position of a negotiator between the government and the terrorists to secure the release of the remaining hostages. There were claims that Mamu during negotiations personally took the monies paid as ransom to the terrorists in cash both in local and foreign currencies. The Nigerian Armed Forces in conjunction with the Department of State Services (DSS) in its reaction to Mamu's successful negotiations which led to the release of about 20 hostages had placed surveillance around him. Part of the investigations the security agencies were looking out for included who appointed Mamu as a negotiator, how payment for ransom by relatives of the captives was paid, who takes the monies to the terrorists, how much gets to the terrorists from the total sum paid by their relatives? This was before the DSS arrested Mamu over allegations of involvement in terrorism in the country. A top security officer who spoke with Sunday Sun on condition of anonymity said, “everybody in this country and outside this country knows that we have been battling with terrorists, bandits, kidnappers and what have you and we are not folding our hands as security agencies on these happenings. “A situation where one person suddenly appears and begins to act as a negotiator to free abducted hostages, if you ask me, is very suspicious. And what right-thinking persons should start asking themselves, is Tukur Mamu the only Nigerian capable of handling this job? “They should also be asking, who made him or appointed him as a negotiator, or is it because he is a media practitioner and his colleagues in the media don’t see anything bad about it? We are also looking at how did he know the terrorists and why is it that he is the only one who knows them out of the over 200 million Nigerians? “Is he one of the terrorists, who and how do the monies paid as ransom by relatives of the hostages get to the terrorists and how much gets to the terrorists compared to what their family members have been telling the public they paid to get their relatives released?”This article was originally published on Naija News
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