Nigerian Police Rescue Woman Held Captive for Nearly a Month, Arrest One Suspect

Esther Chinedu spent nearly a month in the hands of kidnappers before Bayelsa State Police stormed a forest hideout in the early hours of the morning and brought her home unhurt.

The 42-year-old was abducted on Tuesday, July 28, 2026, after suspected kidnappers walked into her phone shop in Amassoma, Southern Ijaw Local Government Area, pretending to be customers.

She later described the moment it turned violent.

"They said they wanted to buy something from my shop. Then, as I entered, that was when they brought out the gun and carried me," she said.

The kidnappers left her daughter and another woman who had been in the shop, taking only her.

CP Ajao Adewale, Commissioner of Police for the Bayelsa State Command, briefed journalists on Sunday morning, explaining that the attackers had scouted the shop beforehand.

"They surveyed the environment and saw that the woman was not sufficiently protected. They abducted her, put her in a vehicle and moved her to the riverside, where she was ferried to the camp," he said.

Chinedu was moved through several boats before reaching the location where she was eventually held, a place she said she never identified.

"There was like two or three days to a month. And the place was very terrible, very, very terrible," she recalled.

The command received a distress call around 7 pm on the day of the abduction and immediately activated its intelligence network, according to Adewale.

Digital and local intelligence gathering eventually produced clues about the kidnappers' movements and their ransom negotiations with the victim's family, he said, adding that the gang had initially demanded N100 million before lowering the figure to N20 million.

Operatives from the command's Crime Response Squad, led by CSP Chris Mark, relocated to Ogumbri Forest five days ahead of the final operation and gradually closed in on the suspects.

The team stormed the camp at about 1:45 am, rescuing Chinedu and arresting one suspect on the spot — 33-year-old Mark, from the Akemfa 1 community, who has since confessed to his role in the abduction and detailed how the gang carried out the operation.

Adewale said the rescue drew on personnel from the Crime Response Squad, the Federal Criminal Investigation Unit and the Marine Department, and praised the officers who endured difficult river conditions during the search.

He also credited the Bayelsa State Government, under Governor Douye Diri, for logistical support.

For Chinedu's husband, the ordeal began while he was away buying mattresses in Abia State.

Strange calls started coming in after 8 am that morning, informing him his wife had been taken.

"I have been in Bayelsa for the past 20 years. I have not had anything like kidnapping in Amassoma. Why is it my wife?" he recalled asking himself.

A divisional police officer later told him two patrol teams had been sent to his home along Amassoma Road.

While travelling back to Bayelsa, he received a call from his wife's own phone demanding N2 million, with instructions to split it between two accounts.

He had only N300,000 available and sent it to one account, but on reaching Amassoma the kidnappers called again, telling him to ignore that account entirely — one of the abductors then took the phone and raised the demand to N100 million.

After he pleaded that he didn't have the money, the figure dropped to N20 million, and negotiations dragged on for days, with the kidnappers at one point asking for N3 million.

He managed to raise another N1.5 million and sent it through, bringing his total payments to roughly N1.8 million — though the demands kept coming, eventually rising to N3.5 million, with a promise that his wife would be freed once it was paid.

The strain also spread to both families, he said, after his wife's mother confronted his own mother over the delay in securing her release.

He kept his children away from their home for safety during the ordeal, struggling to explain to his young son where his mother had gone.

"When I went there yesterday, my last one was like, 'Where is your mummy?' I don't really know what to answer the little boy," he said.

The call that finally told him it was over came without warning.

"When they called me and said, 'Come around and hand over your wife to me,' that was when I knew the police had carried out their mission," he said.

Throughout her captivity, Chinedu said she was neither sexually assaulted nor seriously beaten, aside from one occasion when a kidnapper struck her while she was praying.

She was given food but often couldn't bring herself to eat.

Once freed, she thanked the officers who found her.

"I give glory to Almighty God and to you people that rescued me," she said, adding a prayer for those involved: "May God keep, strengthen and guide them. Also, may God provide all that they want for them."

The operation forms part of a renewed push by the Bayelsa State Police Command against kidnapping and other crimes in the state.

Adewale warned criminals operating in the area that the command would keep hunting them down, urged residents to come forward with useful information, and encouraged young people to pursue legitimate economic opportunities instead of crime.