A 39-year-old Kano businessman, Yahaya Hassan Musa has been killed by kidnappers after receiving N6 million ransom from his family.
The family was thrown into mourning after the body of the businessman was found in a forest, hours after his abductors received the ransom.
The late businessman, married with two kids, was coming from Cotonou, Benin Republic on Thursday after a business trip, when he was abducted by the kidnappers in a forest around Mopa, Kogi State.
The kidnappers, after abducting the businessman, demanded N10 million as ransom, but later reduced the money to N6 million, which the family paid in order to get him released.
A brother to the deceased, Abubakar Hassan Musa, who took the N6 million to the abductors stated that his late brother used to fly anytime he traveled but decided to return by road on the fateful trip.
“The kidnappers requested that I should take the money to a forest in Kabba. I went and delivered the money in cash. They then directed me to a place where I would meet him, but I did not meet him. I slept in the forest alone.
The following day I continued searching until a woman who was kidnapped alongside my brother called me and said they killed him before even collecting the ransom, but that she didn’t know where they dumped his body.
“I went back to the nearby town and hired hunters to get back into the forest and search for the corpse. After trekking many kilometers, we found his decomposing corpse,” Abubakar said.
He said because they couldn’t find a bus to carry the corpse because of its decaying condition, they buried him in the bush according Islamic rites after consulting the family in Kano.