Five abducted Redeemed pastors regain freedom
The Ogun Police Command has confirmed the release of five Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, pastors kidnapped by gunmen at J3/J4 Area, Ogbere, on the Benin-Ijebu-Ode-Sagamu expressway.
According to the police, all the five persons were released Saturday with the only female among them being the first to regain freedom.
The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, had on Friday morning disclosed that five ministers of the church on their way to the Ministers’ Conference were kidnapped on Thursday night.
Adeboye, who said this while speaking at the Church Ministers’ Conference holding at the Redemption Camp in Ogun, appealed to the congregation to pray for the release of the captives.
He had said: “As a father, how do you think I should feel to hear that five of my children have been kidnapped while on their way to attend the Ministers Conference?”
Speaking with journalists on Friday in Abeokuta, the police spokesman in Ogun, Abimbola Oyeyemi, said the victims were on their way from the eastern part of the country when the commercial bus conveying them was blocked on Thursday night by the gunmen at a location between Ogun and Ondo states boundary.
The police spokesman said that the gunmen after forcing the vehicle to a halt, whisked away four men and a woman into the forest, but left behind the driver, a sick passenger and his wife in the vehicle.
Oyeyemi said the state’s Commissioner of Police, Bashir Makama, had personally led the police rescue team to the location.
“Through surveillance we have got to know their location but we don’t want to attack them so that we won’t put the victims’ lives in danger.
“By the grace of God, we will rescue the victims,” Oyeyemi said.