Tordue Salem got missing on October 13, 2021, in Abuja, his wife was thereafter, contacted to pay ransom for his release
By Kehinde Okeowo
The body of the missing Vanguard journalist, Tordue Salem, has been found, but details of the circumstances surrounding the recovery of his remains were still sketchy.
The late journalist covered the House of Representatives, while he was alive and was last seen on October 13, 2021.
According to Vanguard, he was reported to have alighted from a cab at Total filling station, close to the Force headquarters, and headed for B.J’s garden, in the company of a female relative.
He later parted ways with her and informed her that he was going to Area 8, Garki. But went missing since then, until his body was recovered on Thursday.
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An alarm on his mysterious disappearance was raised the next day, from where the matter was directed to the Intelligence Response Team, IRT on October 16, 2021.
The House of Representatives waded in and called on the Nigerian security agencies to immediately launch an investigation into the whereabouts of the missing journalist, Tordue Salem, and give a report to the house in two weeks.
This was made known in a motion raised on Tuesday by Ndudi Elumelu, the minority leader of the house.
In the motion, Elumelu raised concerns that the sudden disappearance of the journalist is “an extension of the deteriorating state of insecurity in the nation’s capital which questions the efficiency of the country’s security operatives”.
Some arrests have however been made. Among them was a man who was picked for attempting to extort Salem’s family.
One of them is identified as Prince Enyenihi, who was said to have contacted the journalist’s wife to demand an N100 million ransom.
The suspect was identified via a text message with a concealed number. Part of the text message read: “if you don’t pay, Tordue will be killed in seven days. For more information, call this number …. The text message also contained an account number the money should be paid into.
This was followed by a call with a concealed number to Salem’s wife the next day, Mrs. Salem requested to speak with her husband, to ascertain he was alive before negotiation would begin. But the caller gave the phone to someone who tried to play along.
When she noticed that the voice did not sound like her husband’s, she asked the stranger to mention the name of their daughter and her birth date, a question that met dead silence at the other end.
The Police later swung into action, by de-encrypting the number that called and traced its owner to a lady in Port Harcourt, Rivers state.
However, during interrogation, the lady who owns Joy Skin Care denied culpability, stating rather than a particular number had been calling her line since October 26, 2021.
Vanguard further gathered that when on further checks operatives discovered that the number calling the Skin Scare owner, was the same as that used to contact Mrs. Salem, consequent upon which 25-year-old Enyenihi was arrested on November 5, 2021.
During preliminary investigation, it was discovered that he was a next-door neighbor to the beautician. During interrogation, he disclosed that he got information of Vanguard reporter’s disappearance on a flyer that went viral on social media, which had the number of Mrs. Salem as the contact person to report to if found.
The suspect also stated that he sent the text messages without the knowledge of his female neighbor, adding that he got his neighbor’s telephone number and account details from her Facebook page.
He added that he used his neighbor’s phone and account numbers, in an attempt to implicate her for being rude to him.
He said, “I knew the family wouldn’t pay the money. I used the owner of Joy beauty skin care ‘s account details to punish her for always talking to me anyhow”.
The Police described the arrest as a distraction from the real killers of Tordue Salem.
