How I found myself in kidnappers’ den – Victim
A civil servant, Alhaji Ibrahim Muhammed, was kidnapped along the Kagarko-Jere road in the southern part of Kaduna State and was released after paying an undisclosed amount as ransom. In this interview, he shares his experience after spending three days i
DAhmed Ali, Southern Kaduna aily Trust: I’m a civil servant working in Abuja. On Monday, November 13, 2017, in the morning, on my way back to Abuja through the Kafanchan-Kagarko-JereBwari road after spending the weekend with my family in Kafanchan, something terrible happened. As I passed Kagarko, before reaching Jere junction, two men with guns appeared before me, and as I was trying to reverse the car, they started shooting at me. I immediately stopped, and all of a sudden four more armed men came from the bush. They dragged me from my car and started beating me, asking me to bring all what was in my possession. I opened the booth and they took away my bag with N50, 000, including my e-passport and my phone.
I was driving alone. They stopped another car. There was a man and three ladies in the second car. They took us into the forest while shooting sporadically. We trekked for about 11 hours before reaching their den inside the forest.
Nothing to indicate that human beings were living there. We were sleeping on the ground with nothing to cover ourselves.
They asked if we understood what kidnappers were. We said ‘yes.’ So they told us that whoever wanted to go back home and rejoin his relatives must pay a ransom. They asked me if I had money and I told them I had but that it was not there with me.
The other people were beaten to coma because they told them that they were students and as such had nothing to give.
They were communicating with my younger brother. They told me that my brother was too harsh and that he was not cooperating with them. They even decided to kill me if my brother did not cooperate. One of the people kidnapped told me that he heard them discussing in Fulani language that they would spare me for just a single day and kill me if my brother did not cooperate and accede to what they demanded. He heard and understood all what they were saying because he is also a Fulani man.
Yes of course. They were young Fulani, between the ages of 20 and 25. I heard them speaking Fulfulde and also heard them calling their relatives in Hausa and urging them to look after their cattle because they were on a journey and would return after two days. I felt their relatives didn’t even know the crime they were committing.
Hmm, prayer! They once threatened that they were going to kill me if I ever mentioned prayer when I requested for permission to pray. However, surprisingly, one of them who always listened to preaching on his phone permitted us to pray.
As for feeding, we were only fed with one cup of water each day. We didn’t take anything apart from water for the three days. And we saw them cooking rice with palm oil and onions for themselves.
I told you that they were discussing with my brother. So when they agreed on a certain amount, they told him to bring it to them and warned him not to involve any security agency. They also told him not to be afraid of anything because they said the forest was their territory and that nothing would harm him. This is exactly what happened. On the third day, at 2:00am, they took us to somewhere near Bwari junction and released us after the ransom was paid.
They told me to take care of myself because they said those who led them to me were people living close to me. They also urged me to pray for them so that they could shun their bad ways.
Let everybody be vigilant and careful with the people around them. As the case of kidnapping is rampant, let the government confront these people and crush them like they are doing with Boko Haram. People are complaining. I heard that same kidnappers arrested and abducted many people at the same location after my release. Apart from property, many unlucky victims have lost their lives. So let the government identify those remote areas and fight the kidnappers to the end.