‘They shot my mother in front of us because the ransom was incomplete’ – Edo woman

A young woman has narrated the traumatic moment her mother, Favour Nosakhare, was shot dead in their presence after their families were unable to raise the sum of N100 million for their ransom.

Recall that the body of Favour Nosakhare, 66, was recently recovered from the bush after she was first seen in a video call when her abductors opened negotiations to demand ransom to free them. 

Nosakhare, her daughter and her daughter’s assistant had previously been picked up from their home in Edo State on May 9, 2026, by armed bandits and moved into the forest.

Narrating her ordeal, Nosakhare’s daughter said they walked for days in the forest before the bandits settled at a location deep inside the forest.

Days later, he said the bandits added more victims to them, making a total of five families.

According to her narration, on May 16, the bandits asked her mother how old she was, and she said 66. She said they asked another woman, and she said 45, and the bandits kept quiet.

She said the captives had thought the bandits asked the question to establish that the women were elderly so that they would stop flogging them.

The distraught daughter said they later realised the question was asked to determine who to kill among them.

Later in the evening of the same day, she said the bandits called all the families one after the other, and each stated how much they had been able to gather.

She said her own family told them they had gathered N7.5 million out of the N100 million they asked for, while the other families mentioned N1.5 million and N1 million respectively.

The survivor said the development angered the bandits, and they debated among themselves whether they should kill all the captives.

She recalled that the leader of the group almost shot one of his team members as they argued over whether to kill everyone or some.

In the end, the bandits took Nosakhare, the second woman, who was 45 years old and a 15-year-old.

According to her, the bandits lined them up a little further from the rest of the abductees, and the next thing they heard was a single gunshot.

The bandits reportedly shot Nosakhare through the younger woman. The bullet went through the first woman and hit Nosakhare, but did not hit the teenager.

The sorrowful daughter said that some minutes after the women were shot, she was still hearing her mother praying until she started gasping for breath and died.

Hear her here

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