Disregard the so-called news you read on social media yesterday that ‘Evans the Kidnapper’ has been sentenced to death by a Lagos High Court. It was all a hoax.
Social media, especially Twitter and the little blog sites, were buzzing yesterday about the purported death sentence handed down on Monday.
Many of us had asked how that could be possible, when the man last appeared before the court on Friday 14th August 2020 and nothing like that came up, while the case was adjourned till October 2020. After all, this is not one of those political cases where you hear that the court decided at 10pm or on a Saturday that so-and-so election has been declared inconclusive!
Evans, real name Chukwudubem Onwuamadike, was arrested on 17th of June 2017 and his case has dragged on, even though one of his gang members has already been sentenced to 41 years in prison for related kidnapping charges.
Lagos is one of the states of Nigeria where there is the death penalty for kidnapping, especially if the kidnap victims are killed by the gangsters.
Evans had entered a guilty plea in 2017 to the kidnap charges, although his lawyers say the plea was obtained by the police under duress.
The charge sheet said 36-year-old Evans led an armed gang of six, to kidnap Dunu Donatus in February, 2017 and held him captive for 57 days, receiving a ransom of 223,000 Euros ($266,000). The kidnap gang was said to be made up of five men and one woman.
The presiding judge in the case has been Hakeem Oshodi of the Ikeja High Court where Evans has been standing trial alongside five Uche Amadi, Ogechi Uchechukwu, Okwuchukwu Nwachukwu, Chilaka Ifeanyi, and Victor Aduba.
In media covered arrangements, Evans has been very cooperative with the police, as in the movies, even explaining his modus operandi, family life, and how he got into the fast lane that his kidnap business was servicing.
Several of his victims were said to have been killed in their operations, some even after ransom had been paid, but Kingpin Evans, who is by miles a billionaire, said he was never part of the killings. All he ever wanted was just to make money, enjoy his life and take care of his family.
He did confirm that they received as much as $1 million from one of their victims’ families before releasing him.
Evans is a native of Nnewi, in Anambra State. He is sometimes referred to as “The Billionaire Kidnapper” because of the belief that he is one of the richest criminals in the kidnapping business in Nigeria.
In October 2017, the police said they foiled a plan by Evans to escape from Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison, Apapa where he and his gang were remanded. Evans was alleged to have planned to dole out between $50,000 and $100,000 to the guards manning his cell to help him escape from jail.
We await the next hearing of the case in October 2020.
