Abducted broadcast journalist, Leonard Nwanekwu on Saturday, October 8 regained his freedom after a ransom of N230,000 was siphoned from his bank account.
Nwanekwu, who is the Imo State correspondent of Blaze 91.5FM Oraifitte Anambra State was seized on Wednesday, October 5 at about 7:20pm while returning from Owerri to his hometown, Atta in Ikeduru Local Government Area of Imo State.
The journalist disclosed that on alighting at Post Office at Atta and attempting to dash to a mechanic workshop to carry his car, a four-member gang who drove in a Bus-Imo screeched to a halt in his front and forced him into the bus at gunpoint.
According to Nwanekwu, the gangsters tied his hands and blindfolded him before driving him to an unknown destination where they stripped him of his trousers.
The reporter further disclosed that the kidnappers took his Automated Teller Machine, ATM, card with which they siphoned the sum of N230,000 from his bank account.
“They also took the N30,000 I had on me and beat me mercilessly for initially giving them wrong pin code of my ATM card”, Nwanekwu said.
Nwanekwu added that the miscreants later tried forcing him to name anybody that could transfer N5million lnto his bank account so they could also withdraw it.
The broadcaster said he confessed he has no such person being someone who is struggling to eke out a living.
He equally revealed that the kidnappers put calls across to his wife and elder brother, demanding they transferred N5million into his bank account or be ready to carry his corpse at Isiekenesi in Ideato South Local Government Area of Imo state.
Nwanekwu said the kidnappers eventually freed him on Saturday, October 8 conveying and dropping him at the hill between St. Dominic Secondary School along Ugiri Isiala Mbano LGA Road.
According to him, he trekked from where they threw him out of their car through Amaraku Market to his family house in Atta Ikeduru at about 2:30am.
