OLYMPIC football team head coach Samson Siasia has told kidnappers who abducted his mother recently in Bayelsa State to forget about receiving any ransom from him as he does not have the cash to meet any demands they make.
Earlier this week, armed gun men abducted Siasia's 72 year old mother Ogere from the family home in Odoni village in Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta. Siasia, Nigeria's U23 team coach will now be expected to cough up a substantial ransom to secure her release as is the tradition.
Currently in Gambia with the Nigerian team in preparation for the African Youth Championship in Senegal, Siasia said they chose a wrong target as he does not have money to give them. He added that his mother happened to be the only one at home in his village taking care of his father who is visually impaired when the three kidnappers arrived on motorcycles.
Siasia said: “Right now I am confused as from the story I got, three men on motorbikes stormed my parents' house in my village Odoni in Bayelsa State, shot sporadically into the air before taking my old mother away on a bike. What do they expect from me?
"I don’t have money. I am right now on national duty and need all the time to concentrate on this very important national task, so I beg them to please release my mother so that I can concentrate on this task of qualifying the U-23 national team for the men’s football event of the Rio Olympics.”
He added that the kidnapping has been reported to the police in Bayelsa State. Nigeria Football Federation president Amaju Pinnick has also appealed passionately to kidnappers to release Mrs Siasia.
Mr Pinnick said: “This is quite disturbing. We were just preparing for a crucial 2018 Fifa World Cup qualifying match and the U-23 boys are already in The Gambia for a pre-Cup of Nations training camp. Why this?
“All we can do is to appeal to the kidnappers to free Samson Siasia’s aged mother. Samson is on a critical national assignment presently and the last he needs is this kind of distraction.”
Kidnapping of footballers and their families is now a common occurrence in Nigeria. In June 2012 international Christian Obodo was abducted in Warri in June 2012 and a year earlier, Mikel Obi's father was kidnapped in Jos.
