I had checked the time on my phone, 10 minutes after 4pm. Before 5pm we should get to the convention ground, I said to myself. That was when I heard the first gunshot in the air. I was on my way to Ayetoro-Gbede in Kogi State. I asked the driver, “Driver, what is that?” He responded with dread in his voice, “we have run into them,,” he said in Yoruba “Awon people yi ni o (it is those people)”. Chaos erupted in the bus. Some men shouted “keep moving, don’t stop” others yelled “stop driver, stop!” The driver was caught between fear and confusion, not knowing what to do. He froze. But by that time it didn’t matter because we had already been surrounded.
Bullets were flying left and right. My son Gabriel and I were in the bus, and unknown to us, some people in the bus had been hit. When the shooting settled, eight armed men moved towards the bus. Five carried AK47s, two held swords and one carried a rod. They ordered everyone off the bus. “Lay on the floor, face your head down.” Those who were injured with blood on them were left there but the rest of us were asked to stand up and move. My son Gabriel was with me so I took his hand and stood up.
We were thirteen in total. Five from my bus and eight from another bus who were lying down by the road as we got there.. Together, we walked into the forest. As we moved, one of my slippers fell off and I bent over to pick it up “No no no, keep going!” I heard the voice behind me say. I kept moving, one foot bare. I was wearing a smartwatch, and one of them saw it. He collected it and asked if it could be tracked. I responded that it was for my health so they only seized it because I said it was not trackable.
We walked until we got to the riverside. They told the men to remove their trousers that were getting into the water. One of the kidnappers, the man with the rod, dipped it into the water. He said something to the others in their language and then turned to us “if the water carry you, you dey on your own (if the water carries you, you are on your own)”
I looked at Gabriel. He looked back at me and I said “Gabriel, how are we going to enter this water?” We entered. “Spread your legs wide” I said to him as the current of the water grew stronger. “Just hold me.” I had heard somewhere from someone that when you are in the water, you should spread your legs. We crossed and got back on land.
Someone from the first vehicle they attacked ran into the bush and about three of the kidnappers chased after him. After some minutes of searching, they could not get hold of him. They came back with anger, so furious. They then started slapping all the men including my son but they didn’t touch the women.
The kidnappers allowed us a moment to rest, after which they began collecting what we had on. Phones, wrist watches, jewellery, we were stripped of everything. Then the man who appeared to be the leader finally spoke “look at us,” he said “we don’t rape women. We don’t kill anyhow. Our own is money. Provide the money we ask you to bring and we would release you.” Hearing this I let out a breath of relief, “thank you Jesus” I whispered.
Soon after, night came in the forest. There was no food. We were taken to a large rock and told to sleep on it. Our clothes were still wet from crossing the water, but the rock was hot from the day’s sun. It slowly absorbed the moisture from our bodies. I lay on my back staring up at the sky, as I waited for morning.
Among the twelve of us left, three were women and nine men. Gabriel was the youngest. Among the women was a lady from Benue, Emily, who understood the Fulani language the kidnappers spoke to themselves and often translated what they were saying to us. “Tell them,” I said to Emily, “since yesterday they have refused to allow us to call our people. Ask them to let us call our families so they would know we are alive and not dead.” Our request reached the leader, a man who we came to call “Oga.” He arrived that evening dressed in khaki and a bulletproof vest, with a brand new AK47 slung over his shoulder. “Oga” I said “since yesterday we have been here. You did not allow us to call our people and let them know where we are. Are we just going to be here like that?” He looked at me and replied “not now, later.”
He asked what each of us did for work, and one by one, we answered. “I am a teacher, I teach in a nursery school” I responded when it got to me. He looked at me with surprise as though he did not believe it. “You are a teacher?” He noticed Gabriel was close to me and said “na only this one you get? (is this the only one you have?)” I answered, “The other one is in school.” He nodded slowly, as if doing a quick maths in his head then proceeded to stating our ransoms. “You will pay fifty million naira. You will pay a hundred million naira.” To me and Gabriel, he said “mama and pikin, fifty million naira.” I burst into tears as soon as he said it. “Where would I see it? I have never seen that kind of money in my life. I only see such figures on paper.” I had never even seen ten million naira before. “Jesus” looking up in the sky, I said “why did you allow this to happen to me.”
The second in command, who was in charge of making calls, told us to wake up. He said they would be calling our families soon and we should be thanking God that we are just being kidnapped. He said we in the kidnappers’ den had more hope than people who died in a car accident on the same road. He was the only one that prayed amongst all of them. He reminded us that the guy that ran yesterday was unfortunate to have fallen into the hands of another set of kidnappers. Instantly he was killed by those ones and the information was passed to them.
That night, we were allowed to make calls. Those who had come with their phones were asked to unlock it and state who they wanted to call. I and Gabriel had left ours on the bus. Those without phones were given one phone to call our families. So I called my husband.
“Daddy,” I said when he picked up “Gabriel is here with me.” He didn’t know that Gabriel had travelled with me. I didn’t say much else. There was nothing else to say.
They kept us moving constantly from place to place. They were beating the men but luckily for me, I was not harmed or touched. They brought food, a small plate of garri (cassava flakes), meant for all twelve of us. I didn’t touch it but I said to Gabriel “don’t compare yourself with me. Whatever they bring, bless it with the blood of Jesus and eat.” I turned my face away and said “Leave me and Jesus, I want to see what he wants to do with our lives that he allowed them bring us into this bush.”
Gabriel replied “Mummy, don’t say that. God wants to bring something out of this.”
“What does He want to bring out of this? They have told us to pay fifty million. If your father sells the car and the land we have, is it even up to two million naira?”
I did not eat anything for the whole time we were in captivity.
Every day, the kidnappers tried something new. On the fifth day, they brought a wrap of eba (moulded cassava flakes) and soup in a nylon to where I sat “you this yellow mama” one of them said, “take this food and eat.” I refused. One the sixth day, they asked to get me fufu. On the seventh day, bread and tea. On the ninth day, they got a big loaf of bread and a can of malt. They gave it to my son to persuade me to eat something. “Tell her to eat so she can have small strength,” they told him. “So that when your moni complete, she go fit waka (so that when your money is complete, you can walk).” But I didn’t touch the bread or the malt.
Over twelve days, we covered what felt like over 200 kilometres on foot. Whenever our path neared places where we might be seen, we were told to “lie down, sleep on the floor” until the path was clear. All twelve of us, who were strangers to each other days ago, were now joined as one family by this thing that had happened to us.
One night, I asked the man we called Manager, the one with the rod who cooked and fetched water for the others. He seemed somehow softer than the rest. “Manager, we are tired of walking,” I said to him. “Where are you taking us to?” He replied that we were heading to Abuja. We thought he was joking and kept moving until it was dark. The trees in the forest soon gave way to the distant noise of the expressway and I soon had the fear of “maybe they are taking us across the border.”
One of the worst nights was the night it rained. The rains really drenched us and it was raining at intervals. We tried to shelter under the trees but the kidnappers screamed at us to sit down. So we sat in the rain, all twelve of us, and it fell on us very well. The night grew cold and we were told to sleep on the wet floor beneath us.
The Manager then disappeared into the trees and came back with palm fronds which he laid on the ground for us. We were all shivering from the cold so I said to him “please come and do fire for us.” He replied “they won’t allow me.” I asked him why and told him “Go in Jesus name, they will allow you.” He went and came back with sticks. All of us both the men and the women, fought over the fires because we were all wet and desperate for warmth. They then divided the fire into two, one for the men and the other for the women.
Each evening was time for calls. The person who made the calls was called Alhaji. He always spoke with something covering his mouth, a mask or a cloth, to disguise his voice. We sat close as he spoke to our families on the other end of the line “How much have you raised?” Alhaji would ask. “Speak in English. Don’t speak your language.” If the amount raised was too small, for example two hundred thousand for a twenty million ransom, the butt of their gun is used to hit the person. One man, an Islamic cleric among us, was beaten so badly as his family hadn’t raised up to two million naira.
When it got to my husband’s turn, he had only raised one and a half million naira. They said to him “you dey craze? 1.5 for what? “Go take am buy fowl and eat. You know there are two here, I can waste them for you.” I and Gabriel also started to plead and say we will try. Gabriel began urging me “Mummy, call uncle Lanre. Call this person. Call that aunty. Call even your enemy to borrow money mummy”
I prayed one prayer in the forest every night that all twelve of us would leave together. “Twelve tribes of Israel,” I said to God. “Twelve disciples.” I held on to the number twelve as a promise of God’s salvation.
We were all given nicknames. One of the men was told to call former senator Dino Melaye because he looked so much like him. Myself and Gabriel were “Mama and Pikin.” One was nicknamed “the company” because he had told them that he was working in a private company. He mentioned that he was supposed to make the trip by air and not by road but didn’t get his ticket on time. When they heard this, his ransom was set at a hundred million naira. The driver of the first bus that was stopped had an ulcer and pleaded vigorously for them to get him an antacid which he kept chewing for the twelve days since they know that keeping alive to speak with his people each day is the key to the gathering of the ransom.
“When the money is complete,” the kidnappers had said, “we will release all of you at the same time.” Some ransoms were coming from different places, Lagos, Abuja, Bauchi. There were three people whose ransoms were coming from Lagos, and the husband of the third woman was asked to bring it. They gave him the numbers of the other two people to collect the ransom from them and bring everything to Okene in Kogi State. One of them agreed and gave the man the money. The other woman said “I cannot give somebody I do not know the money. If I give you the money, will you give me my brother?” The man then called the Alhaji that the woman was refusing to hand her brother’s ransom to him but resolved that she was going to follow him with the ransom down to Okene.
Another person said his people were in Bauchi, so they said to me “madam, you have to help this person. Tell your husband to give us his account number so the Bauchi man will send ten million naira to your husband’s account.” I immediately replied “where do you want my husband to see cash? Even for me and my son, the cash is not complete yet. If he goes to the bank, the bank will suspect what he wants to do with ten million naira cash.” They then said to the group “this yellow woman no wan help you people. Na Monday I say I will release una before but that Monday will not work.” At night, they called my husband and told him the same thing. He gave the same response I had given, asking where he would see that kind of money to withdraw. They said to him “Papa, I command you. You have to do it.” My husband told them, let the family of the person try and get their cash also. I am still looking for how to raise my own. My husband said he couldn’t sleep that night because he was afraid he had spoken harshly to them and that might cause them to harm us.
On the Monday we were finally to be released, we didn’t know the hour. The kidnappers gave all the families instructions to bring something extra along with the ransom. “If you are bringing twenty million naira, you will add one million as deposit, and three fully charged power banks.” The deposit belonged to the kidnappers while the main ransom belonged to the “big men” they worked for. They further said “police do not have the weapons we have, they do not have the groundnut we have.” Curiously I asked him “what is groundnut?” he replied “bullets.”
My husband arrived in the bush at around 9 or 10pm. He had come with all the money, twenty one million naira. The man who came from Lagos came in a Sienna and others were asked to follow him to Ibillo market. Shortly before getting to the Ibillo market junction, they called, “I think you people are not ready to get your people.” They had asked only three of them to come with the Sienna but about six or seven of them were in the car. They had spies everywhere. I was worried and had previously said to them “why don’t you take transfers? All this cash you are saying our people should bring, what if other armed robbers waylay them on the road?” They looked at me almost pitifully and said “our money no dey lost.”
My husband and the others made their way deep into the bush. The kidnappers told them to keep coming until they saw a flash of torch light. Eventually the flashes appeared and Daddy paid to secure myself and Gabriel’s release.
We had never seen that kind of money in our lives but this experience made us find a way to raise it anyway. We are home now but this experience will not leave our memories.
