Details have started to emerge of how Professor (Mrs.) Kamene Okonjo, the 82-year-old mother of Nigeria’s Coordinating Minister for the Economy/Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, was rescued from the den of kidnappers.

Prof. Okonjo, the Queen Mother of Ogwashi-Uku in Delta State, South-South Nigeria, was released this morning, five days after she was taken away from the palace in the absence of her husband by 10 armed men around 1:47 p.m. on Sunday.

Information just reaching News Express has it that the minister’s mother was rescued from an uncompleted building in Kwale, a town in Delta North (just like Ogwashi-Uku) tucked inside a bush. The name of the leader of the gang that kidnapped and held her hostage was given as Bolaji.

Mr. Joe Omokaro, a veteran crime reporter reputed for his close links with the police, quoted Delta State Police Commissioner, Mr. Ikechukwu Aduba, as disclosing that his men tracked down and surrounded the house where Prof. Okonjo was being held last night.

“We didn’t shoot because we didn’t want to put the woman’s life in danger,” Aduba reportedly said. “When the heat was getting too much for the kidnappers, Bolaji made to escape but was shot.”

Bolaji was said to have run into the bush with gunshot wounds but was tracked down by the police and arrested.

“Prof. Okonjo was taken to Asaba, the Delta State capital, this morning on okada,” Omokaro, who publishes Supremeng.com, told News Express.  

The kidnapers, according to information from the police, had operated with a bus bearing the inscription of a non-existent church, thus making it possible for them to successfully evade arrest.

•Photo: Prof. Okonjo.