The kidnapped Chairman of Ejigbo Local Council Development Area (LCDA), Lagos, South-West Nigeria, Comrade Kehinde Bamigbetan, will be released only on the payment of $1 million (about N155 million), his kidnappers have said.

Bamigbetan himself was said to have personally given the information during a brief phone conversation with his wife Fatima in the early hours of today. His phone lines had been switched off shortly after his kidnap at about 11:00 p.m. yesterday, only for a call to reportedly come to his wife from one of his lines at about 4:00 a.m.

The seized council chairman, who spoke from an undisclosed location, was said to have disclosed that his kidnappers want the money to be paid quickly. The kidnappers warned the family not to involve the police or risk having him killed.

The kidnappers and the authorities in Lagos are apparently thinking differently for, as earlier reprted by News Express, the ruling party in the state, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), has ordered his abductors to release him within hours or face dire consequences.

The radical Bamigbetan was a journalist before going into politics. He was Special Assistant on Media to ACN National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as at the time Tinubu bowed out as Lagos State Governor after concluding his two terms on May 29, 2007.