*Accused the Army, Navy, the Tiv community there of criminal complicity
A Nigerian Law School student, abducted on his way to Yola Campus three week ago, has narrated a harrowing account of beatings, starvation, and community-aided captivity.
According to the student, who gave his name as David Obiora, each of the six students paid N10M million ransom before they could be released by their kidnappers.
Obiora also debunked claims that Nigerian police operatives rescued him from the kidnappers in Benue State.
Obiora, who said he hails from Anambra State, said he and the others were kidnapped on July 20 along Zakibiam-Mukari Expressway, after boarding an Al-Dampulo Company Transport Limited vehicle, from Onitsha en route to Yola.
“The road was blocked with logs of wood and damaged tables. The driver tried to escape by making a U-turn, but the vehicle got stuck inside the bush. That was how the kidnappers caught us,” he stated.
He added that among the passengers were six law students, while others were traders and other travellers.
Obiora said the kidnappers tortured them daily in captivity, fed them only once a day, and forced them to drink mud water.
“We paid N10 million each before we vould be released and wespent five gruesome days in the kidnappers’ den, from Saturday, June 26, to Wednesday, July 31,” he said.
He contradicted to the narratives pushed by the police that they were rescued by them, insisting that no security operative played any role in their freedom.
“No, the police didn’t rescue us, neither other security agencies. We paid ransom and we were released. The police might be scared the kidnappers might kill us. They didn’t come close at all,” he said.
He also dismissed the involvement of the Council of Legal Education, stating that “there was no role they played.”
After their release, Obiora and his fellow victims trekked for hours through dense bush paths, from Benue into Taraba state, before finally getting to a restaurant near a motor park, where they waited overnight for a transport manager who helped facilitate their trip to Yola.
He painted a chilling picture of the conditions in the kidnapper’s den, suggesting that the entire adjourning local community to where they were kidnapped must have been complicit in the crime.
“Elderly women cooked for us. Children watched us as we moved in and out to ease ourselves. Nobody tried to stop the evil; they were all part of it. It’s a community business,” Obiora stressed.
He identified the area as Jota community, inhabited by people he suspect to be of the Tiv ethnic group in Benue State.
One of the kidnappers, according to Obiora, openly bragged about being in the business for nine years, boasting of owning a Toyota Highlander and other cars, while his wife and children lived comfortably and attend school outside the forest.
Obiora said the mastermind behind the operation is a former soldier, who fled the military and now uses his influence to settle corrupt personnel in the Army and Navy, to keep them off their den and nefarious business.
He said: “Even one of them told me that he has been in the business for nine years. He has not stepped out from that bush. He bought a Highlander for his wife.
“He bought another car too, but he can’t drive the car. His wife and children are somewhere living comfortably. The children are even going to school.
“I think his wife is also going to school. So, I’m suggesting the Army, the Navy, Air Force should go in there and wipe the entire community and clear everything there because the kidnappers are using the community as a shield.
“Having known that the security agencies cannot just start coming to kill innocent civilians, they use those communities as a shield or compromise them.
“And secondly, their fear of security agencies coming there to kill innocent people also, they told us they don’t kill their kidnapped victims.
“They just collect ransom and go. They told me specifically that they don’t kill and that they are in partnership.
“They will even settle the Army and settle the Navy who Mount roadblocks on the roads in the atea.
“In fact, their oga is a runaway soldier. He told me he is a runaway soldier.
“So, he has so many weapons in his stead, in his house. He even has a juju man (native doctors) from Kano, that gives them vision of if Army is coming inside the bush and the juju man says he will use his charms to divert the attention of the Army from them.
“The juju man will make sure the Army doesn’t come forward. So, I suggest they drop air strikes there and clear everything there. That place should be a dry land, of government is serious about tackling the criminality going on there.”
Calling for drastic government intervention, Obiora urged the Nigerian military to carry out airstrikes and clear the forested region completely or surround the entire Forest from different angles and carry out day and night operations till they arrest everybody there and profile them.
