Nine surveyors who were kidnapped in Akure North council area of Ondo State have regained freedom after payment of N20m ransom.

Recall that the abductors had demanded for N100m ransom before the release of the victims.

The market women begged the kidnappers to reduce the ransom to N50m but they initially rejected.

Their release was confirmed by Pastor Ajibade Owolanke, a brother to the Ejemikin of Akure, High Chief, Oluwole Omotayo in Akure, the state capital.

Pastor Owolanke said that the victims have joined their individual family members.

The victims were taken to different hospitals after they were released by their abductors.

Recall that the victims were kidnapped a week ago while on site at Ilu-Abo, in Akure North council area of the state.

Irked by the state of insecurity in the state, market women and other Youths in Akure metropolis staged a protest on Tuesday and appealed to the governor, Dr Lucky Aiyedatiwa and the security chiefs in the state to halt the ugly development.

Details later…

Victoria Goodwin, the wife of a popular American actor who hired an assassin to kill him has been arrested.

She is the wife of American actor, Aaron Goodwin.

She allegedly hired a hitman to kill the actor barely two years after their wedding.

She was arrested on March 6 on charges of solicitation to commit murder and conspiracy to commit murder after she allegedly plotted to have her husband killed, according to a TMZ report.

An arrest report obtained by the outlet said that Victoria Goodwin has denied the allegations.

The report cited a text message from Victoria Goodwin to an inmate in a Florida prison.

“Am I bad a person? Because I chose to end his existence. Not divorce,” she allegedly said in the text.

The plot was allegedly hatched in October 2024 and only discovered when correction officers seized the Florida inmate’s contraband phone.

Police said Victoria provided the whereabouts of her husband, who was filming ‘Ghost Adventures’ at the time in California, to the inmate via text, according to TMZ.

Victoria was going to pay the alleged hitman $11,515, police said, with an upfront payment of $2,500.

According to police, she admitted the pair were having “marital problems” but attributed the alleged exchanges with the inmate “daydreaming or fantasizing about being without her husband.”

The couple wed at Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion in 2022.