Operatives of the Inspector General of Police Special Intelligence Response Team (IRT) have arrested a primary school teacher in Abia State for colluding with her Facebook lover to fake her kidnap and extort money from her family.

The suspect, identified as Chizoba Ogbonna, a mother of three, is an indigene of Osisioma in Abia State and a graduate of Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education, Owerri, Imo State.

She was arrested alongside two others, Uche Anthony and Joseph Ezema her Facebook lover, who allegedly assisted her to mastermind her kidnap, as well as negotiate for a ransom.

TheNation reports that the suspects got N500,000 as ransom through Chizoba’s bank account before the IRT operatives swooped on them.

One of Chizoba’s relatives alerted the Inspector General of Police, Adamu Mohammed, to her abduction and the demand for additional N2 million as ransom.

The source said the operatives, who were armed with advanced tracking devices, trailed Chizoba and her kidnappers to an uncompleted building at Agborji community in Abriba-Ohafia area of the state with the intention of rescuing her and nabbing her kidnappers, but they (operatives) were shocked when they arrived the hideout and discovered Chiboza having a good time with one of her kidnappers.

The team discovered that she faked her abduction to extort money from her relatives which she intends to use to fund her overseas travel plans with her boyfriend.

Chizoba, however, denied staging her own abduction, claiming that she was hypnotised by her abductors and whisked away in a vehicle before she later found herself in the home of her boyfriend, Joseph Ezema, who she said contacted her family to demand for the ransom.

She said:

“I am a primary school teacher. I was formerly married and had three children for my ex-husband, but I don’t love him. It was as if he charmed me.

“I pulled out of the marriage when I realised that I had been hypnotised.

“In 2018, I met Joseph on Facebook and he told me he is a fashion designer. Later I told him that I have some jobs for him and from that point we started a relationship.

“At one point in our relationship, we discussed travelling out of the country and he told me that he had once spent about N300,000 for a visa and it didn’t work out for him.

“So, on March 13, I was on my way to visit my sister and a vehicle stopped in front of me. I saw six persons in it and a woman inside the vehicle called me and when I responded, she asked me to enter the vehicle. At that point I lost control of myself. She asked me to enter the vehicle and I obeyed her.

“I later found myself in the home of my boyfriend at Agborji. My boyfriend took my phone, called my sister and demanded ransom. When my sister spoke with me, I begged her to pay the ransom my boyfriend was demanding.

“I then sent my account number to my sister and she paid N500,000 into the account. Two days after the money was paid, the police came and arrested me and my boyfriend.”

But her 30-year-old boyfriend, Joseph Ezema, debunked her claims that she was hypnotised and kidnapped.

Narrating how he met Chizoba and how she suggested the idea of kidnap so she could raise money they would use to travel out of the country, he said:

“I have just a secondary school leaving certificate. I’m not married and I don’t have children. I was arrested because I faked the kidnap of my girlfriend. I met her sometime in April 2018, she is one of my friends on Facebook and she was always commenting on my photos. We started chatting, then we started dating.

“She told me that she was a divorcee and that her husband used to beat her and he wasn’t allowing her to have friends and there was a day the man came home with another woman and everything became complicated for her. Then she decided to move out of her husband’s home.

“She said she rented an apartment and lived there with one of her children. So, when we started dating, I visited her house with one of my friends, Anthony and I told her that I was planning to travel out of the country. She said she wanted to travel with me, but I told her that I didn’t have such money.

“So, she told me that she would want me to kidnap her and demand ransom from her sister. That we would use the money to travel out of the country.  We then travelled to my town, Abriba and she came with a blue phone with two sim cards.

“Two days later, she covered her phone with a cloth and called her sister, pretending to be a kidnapper. She later told her sister that she had been kidnapped and she demanded ransom.  Later, she got scared and thought her sister would recognise her voice. Then my friend, Anthony, took over the phone and started negotiating with her sister. After two weeks of negotiation, her family paid N300,000 into her account.

“On the day we were arrested, her family paid an additional N200,000 into her account and they said that was all they could afford. She gave me N100,000 as my share, but the police came and arrested me. I told the police that I am not a kidnapper and that it was my girlfriend who lured me into the act.”