Our tortuous journey to kidnappers’ den

By Ahmed Abdulkadir The Operation I came to know about kidnapping as a secondary school student when I read the novel ‘No Orchids For Miss Blandish’, by the famous thriller writer, James Hadley Chase. But I have never, in my wildest dream, imagined such a thing would happen in Nigeria, let alone happen to me. […]

By Ahmed Abdulkadir

The Operation

I came to know about kidnapping as a secondary school student when I read the novel ‘No Orchids For Miss Blandish’, by the famous thriller writer, James Hadley Chase. But I have never, in my wildest dream, imagined such a thing would happen in Nigeria, let alone happen to me. It was only when it started happening in the southern states of Nigeria and gradually crept to the Northeast when the terrorist organization, Boko Haram, adopted it as part of their strategy of fighting the rest of the country that I began to consider it as a possibility that could happen to me.

When it came down to the Northwestern states, especially the neighbouring states of Zamfara, Sokoto, Kaduna and finally to my home state, Katsina, I still doubted it would reach my local government area, Bakori. I reasoned that Bakori did not have any border with any forest where the marauders would quickly sneak in and out of since the kidnappers in the Northwestern states seldom used cars.

But it finally dawned on me that I was actually vulnerable too, when it happened right inside Bakori about three or four times before ours! Even when they finally came to my house, I wasn’t mentally prepared for it, so it was like a movie, and I saw everything like a dream and I went into some kind of trance.

On that fateful day, Monday, September 6, 2021, I was at my family house in the evening, where we normally gathered with some of our relatives and fraternized. When it was time for the dusk (Magrib) prayer, I realized that clouds had gathered and it was likely going to rain before we finished praying, so I decided to go back to the mosque in my estate and pray there. That way, when the rain starts to fall, I wouldn’t get wet before going into my house. One of the people we were chatting with, a family friend, Abdulkadir Mansur, actually tried to give me a water container to perform ablution with, but I told him I was going home. So, I went, not knowing that I was being pulled towards my fate, towards what was destined would happen to me. And no power on earth could save me. It had been written fifty thousand years before the world was created by the all powerful, all knowing, almighty Allah.

At the mosque, I suggested that we should combine the two prayers of Magrib and Isha so that we wouldn’t have to come back later when it started to rain. And so, we did. Everybody went home afterwards.

I immediately ate my dinner and it was one of those days when I was well fed. We were all sitting in the parlour watching a drama on satellite TV, Arewa 24 channel. The children were glued to the episode called ‘Ƙaddarar Rayuwa’, which could roughly be translated as Life’s Destiny. Ironically, it was what was exactly going to happen to us! Later at our detention camp, our abductors asked my daughter, Laila, what she was watching on the TV when they came. They all laughed when she told them the name of the episode. They said it was exactly what befell us.

As we were relaxed and watching that drama, I began to feel drowsy and I decided to call it a day even though it was just a few minutes after 8pm. So, I went into my room and undressed, putting on a long sleeved, brown, silkish kaftan (Jallabiyya) and white sports shorts.

At the parlour, I left Laila, Muhammad and Fatima, all my children. Our neighbour’s wife, Nana Iro, a nursing mother who had visited us, was sitting with the children, while my wife, Hattuna, was in the kitchen. I was about to lie down on my bed when I realized that the bed needed to be made. So, I went into the kitchen to tell my wife to come and make the bed. And that was when they broke into the house.

My 11-year-old child, Muhammad, for some reason, had gone to shut the parlour door when he saw them come in, wielding AK 47 riffle, several of them. The gate to my house was not locked, it was simply pushed to. A young lad, the son of my neighbour’s security guard, Lawwali, was sitting by the guard’s room at the gate, charging his phone from the socket outside the guard’s room. They seized the phone and proceeded into the house. When he saw them rush in, Muhammad, quick as a rabbit, darted back into the house not locking the door, shouting, “Kidnappers!” – don’t ask me how he knew they were kidnappers – and they responded by shooting into the air, to affirm their presence, while they rushed towards the house from the gate. Muhammad ran into my room, saw my phone on a stool, charging. He quickly snatched it and hid it, snuggled and hid in my wardrobe. That was how my phone was saved.

Meanwhile, Nana Iro, our neighbour; her two children; my daughter, Fatima and the daughter of my neighbour’s guard, Nanawo; ran into my wife’s bedroom and hid in the bathroom. The bandits found only Laila, dazed, sitting in the parlour, holding her mother’s phone in her hand. Her tab and small phone were on a stool beside her. They snatched all the three items and some of them rushed into the house.

When I heard Muhammad shout, “Kidnappers!”, I was standing in the kitchen, while my wife was sitting in front of a gas cooker. I made to go out through the back door from the kitchen, but my wife warned me, “don’t you dare go out… they may shoot you”. Still, I opened the door and looked towards the gate. That was when I saw about five of them rush in, holding guns. So I went back into the kitchen, closed the back door and waited for them.

They came in almost immediately. One of them shouted at me, pointed the gun and said, “Sit down or I’ll shoot you”. So, I knelt down and started to pray, mouthing the Kalimatu Shahada, hoping those words would be my last, should I be killed.

The other one who pursued our neighbour’s wife and the other kids into my wife’s bedroom brought them out and together with the other one pointing a gun at my wife and I, shepherded us out. They asked whether my neighbour’s wife and my wife were all my wives and I said yes. If they had known that the other woman was not my wife, they might have taken her, too. I saw all these like in a dream.

After taking us outside, one of them, probably their leader, decided that there was no need to take many of us from the same house. So, they picked only Laila and I and told the rest to go back home. I felt relieved a little. They took us into a farm just outside our estate and told us to wait there while they continued to break down the door to the last house. Several of them guarded us while we waited.

As we waited, one of those guarding us asked if I had money on me so that he could release me. I said I had nothing on me. I knew he was lying, he just wanted to collect what was on me without the knowledge of the others. I found out later that when they went out on such operations, whatever each one was able to collect was his alone, including phones. It was the ransom that was shared according to ranks.

They continued to hit at the gate to the last house until they broke it down, went in, broke another door down and brought out the head of the household, Bello Aminu. He later told us that they first knocked at the gate and when he asked who it was, they said it was his neighbour. He immediately suspected it was bad guys and refused to open. He went back into the house, locked the main front door and started making phone calls, for help. He called the ward head, Suleiman Sule Idris, Wakilin Makama, at the estate, who is also the younger brother to the District Head, Idris Suleiman Idris. The ward head, at the time, was with the District Head, who was on phone (ironically, the District Head, at that time, was speaking with the kidnappers who had abducted his younger brother and four others, ten days earlier), and so the ward head didn’t immediately answer Bello’s call in order not to be rude to the District Head, intending to call Bello back later, not knowing that it was an emergency. By the time he called back, it was too late… They had broken down the door and taken Bello out.

Before they came into my house, they had come from the bush through Road A, which is the first street in the estate. They met three people outside one of the houses, talking with a stranger they found making a phone call. Not trusting him, the three people challenged him, wanting to know who he was calling. He told them he came to the estate to visit his girlfriend. And that it was the girlfriend he was trying to call. They asked who the girlfriend was, but before he could answer, the bandits were already on them. Those they found were Habibu Rabe, in front of whose house the four of them were standing. He was together with his neighbours, Shamsu Aminu, Musa Sandada and the stranger they were querying. The bandits first asked them to surrender their phones and money. Habibu Rabe slid his phone into the grass beside him and pretended he had already handed it over to one of them. It was later found by the ward head after the bandits had taken us away. When they asked him for money, again, Habibu Rabe said he had handed it over already. They shepherded the four of them and brought them to where we were waiting. When they finally brought Bello Aminu after breaking down his door, they matched us into the bush through nearby farms and our journey began.

But they raided a few other houses before matching us into the bush. Close to my house, on the way to Bello Aminu’s house and into the farms, was another house they had broken into. Here, they were not so lucky as the owner lived in Kaduna and only visited occasionally. They, however, found his security guard, Sani Ma’aje, whom they told to lie down. They roughed him up a bit before taking him to the rest of us waiting.

They also entered another house adjacent to my house. But there, also, they found only the security guard, Abdullahi, whom they beat up and took away his son, Lili, a boy of about 14 years, at a guess.

Then they broke into my neighbour’s house to my left, but found nobody in the house as my neighbour’s wife, Nana Iro,  was the one they met in my house and her husband, Umar Rabe, younger brother to Habibu Rabe, mentioned above, was out of town. They went to the house opposite and found it locked. They knocked, but there was no movement and the owner of the house, Jibrin Lawal Usman, probably sensing danger, had put out the light. They moved to the next house thinking there was nobody in the house.

In the next house, a little Almajiri, opened the gate for them, mistaking them for some visitors. Luckily, the husband and wife were all out. But the owner of the house, Musa (Babawo) Tukur Idris, was just a few meters away after they had left his house and he was heading home. When he noticed some commotion and realized that something was amiss, he went back to seek for help. It was the alarm he raised that later made it possible for six out of the nine of us that were kidnapped to escape.  His was the last house they entered before taking us all into the bush. All this while they were operating, no help came from anywhere.

When the long trek was about to commence, I begged them to release my daughter, telling them that she was sick. Initially, some of them agreed that she should be allowed to go, but the leaders would have none of it.

 

Part II

The Long Trek

Just before we started going, one of them took a close look at me and asked who I was. I told him I was a retired journalist. That aroused his interest and he told some of them. Fulani people are known for their love for radio. In those days, you hardly found a Fulani man who didn’t own a radio. In the bush while they tended their cattle you found them always listening to the radio. That’s what probably aroused their interest when I said I was a journalist. From then on, they started calling me Ɗanjarida, which is the translation of journalist in Hausa.

I have always prided myself in how fit I am because I walk four to five kilometres most of the days of the week. But nothing prepared me for the, approximately, one hundred and fifty kilometres, thirty hours trek my daughter and I were forced to endure, barefooted. During my morning walks, I had come to learn that I covered about one kilometre in twelve minutes and about five kilometres in an hour, approximately. I had downloaded an application on my phone which helped me work that out.

So, they matched the nine of us through the farms and shepherded us like cattle to the slaughter. I kept close to the person holding on to my daughter. After about a kilometre or so, they realized that Bello Aminu couldn’t walk properly as he was limping owing to a wound he had sustained a long time ago. They stopped all of us while they asked what was the matter with him and he told them. They then decided to let him go on the condition that he would send them money. He made the promise and they asked him to go, warning that they would come back and get him if he failed to fulfill the promise. At that instance, I again pleaded with them to let Laila go on account of her ailment, but they refused. With Bello released, that left eight captives and we moved on.

I had heard from people previously kidnapped how they matched them barefooted. So, when they brought me out of the house, I pleaded with them to allow me to put on my slippers and they obliged. I had no idea that it was going to be a very long trek through mud where, sometimes, your foot sank up to your ankle. And that was how, not long after we started trekking, I left one of the slippers deep in the mud – I threw the other one away. We continued to walk through bush and farms, not following the normal footpaths, heading towards the Bakori-Ɗanja road, crossing River Jare.

Back home, all hell broke loose. Bakori people hardly slept that night. News of our abduction spread like wildfire. Not only in Bakori, but all over the country friends and relatives were informed. Vigilantes and some security agents were mobilized for a rescue mission. They decided to head off the bandits from where they were likely going to come out to cross the road along Bakori-Ɗanja, somewhere around Jiɓa. My neighbour, Babawo, who had earlier gone back to raise alarm when he came upon them operating told me he took some policemen in his car to Jiɓa village along Bakori-Ɗanja road, where they set up a checkpoint, screening vehicles. They were flashing their flashlights all over the place you could see them a mile away. And that turned out to be the Achilles’ heel of the operation; we saw them long before we reached the crossing point… Our abductors steered us away from them, warning us to keep silent. We passed not more than a hundred meters from them and moved towards the second crossing point. And that was where the vigilantes were hiding. The moment the bandits made an attempt to cross the road at the second crossing point, the vigilantes opened fire. All of us scampered back into the thickness of a maize farm with the bandits shooting at the vigilantes. I later learnt that one of the vigilantes was shot in the foot. But none of the bandits was shot. After some minutes of madness and shooting, the vigilantes retreated, giving way to the superior fire power of the bandits. When calm finally returned, the bandits realized that all the captives had disappeared except my daughter and I. I could easily have escaped, too, but for the fact that one of them held my daughter. It was needless for me to run away leaving my ailing daughter in their hands. Wild horses could not drag me away from her.

We finally came onto the road. That was when I had the opportunity of counting the bandits. There were 21 of them, all but one wielding AK 47 rifles. The other one was holding only a machete. When it dawned on them that only my daughter and I were left among the captives, they became so furious, frustrated and abusive. There and then, some of them suggested that they should go back and look for them even if it meant going back to our estate. In the end, they decided against it.

They looked around and discovered a hut by the roadside, probably where the vigilantes had hidden. There were two motorcycles in the shed. One of them went and put on the headlamp of the motorcycle. He asked if they should steal them, but decided not to. One of them asked if they should burn them down but, again, decided against it.

While all this was going on, I examined my surroundings. I saw, by the roadside, a road sign bearing the name of a village, but without light, I couldn’t read which village it was. But just across the road, opposite the shed where the motorcycles were parked was a building. Some of them took us to the building where we stood under the roof as it had started to rain. I looked around the building and realized that it was a health centre and I came to the conclusion that we were at Jiɓa Health Centre in Ɗanja Local Government Area.

The realization that only my daughter and I were in the hands of the kidnappers hit me and my heart sank. I was in a jam, alright. I began to get into a panic, as we continued the long trek. I assessed my situation and told myself that probably my last hour had come. I wondered how I was going to die… whether I would die by a bullet like my late brother, Sanusi, who was shot dead by armed robbers or I would simply die from some form of ailment or hunger and thirst. I doubted if my daughter would survive the ordeal, should she have a crisis. Laila was born a sickler, suffering from sickle cell disease. Although her case was mild and sometimes, she went up to a year without experiencing any crisis, I wondered how she would survive this ordeal without taking her daily drugs. I expected her to collapse any time during the journey, but God in his infinite mercy gave her the strength and the health to see her through.

All these went through my mind as we trekked barefooted in the darkness through the bush and farms with rain heavily falling on us. It had never rained as heavily as it did that night, throughout the year. Come to think of it, it hadn’t rained as heavily as it had that night in many years. And we never stopped to rest or take shelter throughout the night. Soon, because I wasn’t wearing shoes and the ground was wet and slippery, I began to slip and fall down. I fell down so often that the bandits began to get irritated, thinking I was doing it deliberately. They soon realized that it wasn’t deliberate, so one of them held my hand and steadied me whenever I stumbled. We came upon a place that was so slippery that I slid and fell into a long ditch that was about three meters deep. I couldn’t come out by myself, so they had to pull me out.

We went on like that and Laila was making progress silently, without complaining. It pained me so much to watch her taking all that punishment. I doubt if she had ever trekked one kilometre in her life. Soon, we came upon a big river which we had to cross. But the river was full and the water was running so fast and making waves. We followed the length of the river trying to find an easy place to cross but there was none. We followed its course for more than an hour before we found a place that looked fairly easy to cross. One of the bandits went forward and tried to cross but was almost immediately seized by the strong waves and plunged deeper into the river. He yelped, threw away his gun in an attempt to save himself. The gun was swept away by the tide and he only managed to scamper back to safety. He lost the gun.

The rest of us went further up the course of the river till we found a safer place where we crossed over. After crossing the river, they seemed to have lost their bearing. They started asking each other which way was the way. In the end, they decided to go into a small Fulani settlement we came across, went in and brought out a lad whom they forced to show us the way. They spoke in Fulfulde and I didn’t understand what they were saying. They also stole a few things from the settlement, including a leather jacket which they gave Laila to keep herself warm. They also gave her some tomatoes to eat, which they stole from the settlement. That act of treachery – stealing from fellow Fulani – told me as nothing else would that they could sell their mother for a couple of dimes. I was later to witness similar acts of treachery. It was raining heavily all this while. We continued to trek in that condition without further incident till it was morning. Somewhere along the way we came across a sugarcane plantation. Using their machete, they plucked some which they gave us. I accepted it gratefully and ate with relish – we hadn’t eaten nor drank anything since we left home nearly ten hours ago. By morning we had walked for about ten hours. And at a guess, we were not far from Zaria-Funtua Road. Judging from the next large plantation called Turare in Hausa, which we passed through, my assumption shouldn’t be too far off from the truth. After the plantation, we came across a large maize farm. In the middle of the farm, we found a big tree under which they told us to sit down. The tree provided no succour as most of its branches had been cut off, thus unable to provide shelter from the rain. I wasn’t sure if they deliberately chose that place or it’s just a coincidence. We remained seated there throughout the day for about twelve hours under the rain. It rained almost throughout the day. I asked for permission to pray but they refused. So, we remained there till dusk, soaked to our marrow and shivering. They had raincoats, so they cared less what happened to us. I realized that sadism was part of their nature. In traditional folklores we had heard as kids, I recalled that in most of the tales, Fulani people were portrayed as sadists. And that act as well as similar incidents I witnessed later seemed to confirm that traditional belief.

As soon as it was dusk, we continued our journey. Soon, we came to a place where we had to cross the Zaria-Funtua Road. I heard them taking a decision to attack commuters on the road and get more captives. They said the two of us weren’t enough, so they had to compensate for those they lost. By then, it was completely dark. After crossing the road, they decided that about five of them should remain by the roadside and launch the attack. The rest continued the journey with us. Soon, we began to hear gunshots and realized that the offensive was on. And the shots stopped as abruptly as they started. After what seemed a long time, we heard them running and they soon caught up with us. They narrated the story of how the attack went on: that they had laid up an ambush by the roadside when a convoy of vehicles came along from Zaria side going towards Funtua. The convoy was led by a Toyota Hilux carrying soldiers. When they opened fire on them, the soldiers immediately returned fire. They shot at each other for a couple of minutes. The convoy immediately divided into two. The first half proceeded towards Funtua while the other half made an immediate u-turn and headed back towards the Zaria side.

Although none of the bandits was hit, they were badly rattled because it was a close call. They said the soldiers were sharp shooters and they nearly nailed some of them. They came back without getting any captive. One of them began to whine that all his legs had been cut up while running in the bush with his shoes thrown off. He was walking with difficulty. I silently thanked God and said that made, at least, three of us who couldn’t walk properly.

We crossed a very big dam which had broken down and water spilling over dangerously, making passage to the other side difficult, if not impossible. Yet, that’s where we crossed, helped by the bandits. I never believed Laila and I could cross over even if assisted, but cross we did, miraculously. I later learnt that it was Maska dam. We headed towards a town called Maska in Funtua Local Government Area, off the main road and footpath, of course. I heard them say they had targeted a house they wanted to break into. We reached the town’s periphery in the outskirts. We squatted near some houses while they called their contacts from the town on the phone. They were probably their informants. We didn’t see them because they went behind some houses where we were squatting. The bandits brought us some food provided by the contacts. It was a popular Fulani and Hausa delicacy called Dambu in Hausa. It’s made out of grinded maize and cooked with vegetables, onions, and peppers. When cooked, it’s either mixed with cow milk (by the Fulani) or with groundnut oil (by the Hausa). The one brought to us was the later, which made me suspect that their accomplices who brought the food were their Hausa informants who lived in the town. The food was flat and tasteless. But because I was hungry and needed some energy to continue to walk, I took a few mouthfuls, just enough to keep me going.

But Maska and its surrounding villages were known by the bandits as areas infested by vigilantes who were merciless when they caught the bandits. In those areas, because they had suffered incessant attacks by the bandits, they slept with one eye open. The vigilantes patrolled throughout the night as we witnessed while approaching the town. Any movement they heard, they flashed their torchlights, making some sort of signals in the air to show their presence and wakefulness. It also warned marauders to keep off. The bandits took advantage of those signals to steer clear of troubled areas. They never put on their lights but, instead, contacted each other making sounds they used in calling their cattle.

They finally decided to suspend launching the attack in the house they had targeted. Two days later while we were in the detention camp they returned and carried out the attack, taking along some hostages.

Postponing the attack, we proceeded on our journey. At this time, Laila and I were so exhausted that we were moving with difficulty. Wherever we stopped, even briefly, we fell down and almost fell asleep. At this stage, Laila had to be half carried as she couldn’t walk properly, being too weak. I was in no better shape myself; my feet were sore from walking on gravels, matching on pebbles and thorns, my knees bruised and all but wobbling as if I was walking on rubber feet. In-between my thighs were raw and slightly bleeding. I was in a hell of a shape.

Not long out of Maska, I fell down, unable to get up. They shouted at me to get up, but I just couldn’t. I had come to the end of my tether. One of them cocked his gun and pointed it at me, threatening to shoot me if I didn’t, but I ignored him. Scared, Laila came and tried to pull me up, but she couldn’t as she was in a worse shape herself. That galvanized me into action and I summoned my last ounce of strength and managed to get up. The way I was feeling, coupled with the anger that was building up in me, I didn’t care a hoot if I was shot. I was past caring. I had gone beyond caring that at the back of my mind, in a weird sort of way, even welcomed being killed. But the thought of what they would do to my daughter after killing me made me swallow my anger. I had no illusion that they were ruthless and unscrupulous enough to continue to hold Laila to ransom without any qualms until they collected money. My death wouldn’t make any difference, so I persevered and went along.

After another long walk, one of the bandits that ran and hurt his leg after the Zaria-Funtua attack also began to complain that he couldn’t walk properly and called for a rest. They decided that we would rest when we reached a hamlet they had ransacked. They said there were empty houses left intact where we could rest.

We came to yet what looked like another big river which we had to cross. But just before we plunged into it, I realized that it was a long slope that was overflowing due to the continuous rainfall. The water reached up to our buttocks and was passing furiously, so Laila and I again had to be assisted across.

We reached the hamlet not long after crossing the slope. It was around 3am according to one of them who consulted his phone clock. There was a mosque in the middle of the abandoned hamlet which was surrounded by farms. In front of the mosque was a fireplace, and they quickly started a fire and warmed themselves. They also roasted some maize and ate. They didn’t bother to give us as we had found a place inside the mosque and started sleeping. We woke up after about an hour to find all of them sleeping and snoring, their guns abandoned. We could have taken the guns and shot them, but we didn’t know where the rest were sleeping. Besides, we were in such a bad shape that we couldn’t go far in the middle of nowhere. So, we eased ourselves and went back to sleep. We woke up around 6am and continued to trek.

We passed near a small Fulani settlement (Ruga). We saw two Fulani elderly people sitting in a small clearing in front of their small huts (Bukka), ostensibly discussing something very important. Behind them was a small hut where a few goats and sheep were tied. I looked around but couldn’t see any cows nearby. Probably that’s all they owned, or what was left of what they owned, if what I suspected was correct. In spite of passing close to those elderly people, they refused to look our way. They looked so scared to me and pretended to be oblivious of us, which made me wonder if they had also at one time or the other fallen victims of such bandits’ attacks and their cattle rustled. It was probably how they lost their herd of cattle and were left with only a few sheep and goats. One of the bandits greeted them and it was only then they seemed to notice our presence.

We also came across some hamlets where some women came out looking at us. They appeared to be used to seeing bandits taking captives away. After the hamlet, some people on a bicycle came towards us and two of the bandits stopped them to see what they were carrying in a big plastic bowl. When they found nothing of interest, they let them go. Later, two people on a motorcycle hastily turned back and ran away when they saw us approaching. Further ahead, a farmer came out just after we had passed his farm. When he saw us, he uttered, “Inna lillahi wa Inna ilaihir raji’un“, meaning, from Allah we came and unto him are we returning. One of the bandits told him to come and ran after him, but he ducked back into the thickness of the maize farm and disappeared.

Soon we came to learn with a sense of relief that they had called some of their accomplices to come and take us on motorcycles and convey us the rest of the way to the detention camp deep inside the forest. But we continued to trek for some more hours before we finally came to the appointed place. By then, it was around 3pm at a guess. Along the way, they again got some sugarcane for us which we accepted gratefully.

The accomplices came on powerful and fast motorcycles. A young teenager was asked to carry me but he declined, saying I was too big for him, lest I strangle him along the way. So, another older person took me. He let me tie, on the motorcycle carrier, the rest of my sugarcane together with Laila’s slippers, which I was holding for her because it was too heavy for her to walk with. It was one of the items they stole and gave her at the Fulani settlement where they got a leather jacket for her. I began to lose some of my freedom from that place: they tied my face with a rag they tore off the linen of the leather jacket they told me to shed, saying they didn’t want me to recognize any of them later. The leather jacket was given to me by one of them way back when it was raining, to keep me warm. They said I wouldn’t need the leather jacket anymore once we reached the camp as there would be shelter against rain.

Throughout the journey also, they always told me to look away and not at them. Even when we spent the whole day at the maize farm, they found a place behind us and told us to look straight infront of us.

After riding the motorcycles for about one or two hours, we finally reached the detention camp.

 

 

Part III

The Detention Camp

The camp was set in a vast forest among many other camps set so far apart from each other that people from one camp couldn’t see the other camp. In fact, we had no idea where other camps were located. But we often heard them talking about the other camps. And some of the guards in the other nearby camps visited our camps. They called the camps Daɗɗo.

To my understanding, in each of the camps the highest ranking bandit in charge was called Kachalla – it was a title in their hierarchy of authority. He gave the orders and was generally the overseer of that particular Daɗɗo. But I don’t think he was the kingpin of the operation. He appeared to be answerable to a higher authority whom we never saw nor heard of throughout our stay. Immediately under the Kachalla was another guy of considerable rank they called Alhaji. He was a very kind and considerate person who frowned at any form of mistreatment of all captives, whom they called Sanƙamammu. As a matter of fact, he called all the women captives and seriously warned them never to submit to rape from some of the guards, no matter the threats and intimidation. The guards were notorious for raping captives while the senior bandits were away. He warned that if any of them were molested and she failed to report, she would be shot together with the molester if they were later found out.

The bandits had a strong superstitious belief that if any of the victims was raped, it was a bad omen for all of them. They believed that something bad would befall them and they wouldn’t get any money.

In the hierarchy, next under Alhaji were the guards. These were not part of the gang that kidnapped us. They were hired to solely look after us for an agreed fee.

The hierarchy, as I understood it, consisted of the kingpin who organized the kidnap; the foot soldiers, who actually carried out the kidnap and were responsible for collecting the ransom; those who carried out the negotiations for the ransom (they were, most likely, among the foot soldiers); the Kachalla and his deputy, Alhaji; and the guards.

Among all those, the victims were only left with the guards, day in day out. We never saw the rest except occasionally when they came to ask a victim to talk to his relatives on phone to negotiate the ransom.

There were three guards in our camp: there was one they called Magaji, who appeared to be the most senior of the three, another one they called Yellow, and they called the third one Small.

Magaji was the saner of the three and he wielded authority over the other two. He checked their excesses and they appeared to obey his order or directive. Small was also a little worse than Magaji but not as wild nor as vicious as the third one they called Yellow. Yellow was the bad guy you wouldn’t want to get into the wrong side of. He took drugs and sometimes alcohol. Both him and Small were also smokers. They shared cigarettes among themselves and with some of the victims who smoked. I heard that they even shared drugs with some of the victims, but I had never witnessed so.

Magaji’s vice was his excessive love for money. To my understanding, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for money. He was the smooth talker who would make you believe he was on your side just to make you commit yourself to pay a lot of money as ransom. He would try to make you believe that the kidnappers were big people who would never accept peanuts as ransom. He would frighten you into believing that you would be tortured if you didn’t mention a fat figure as your ransom. He was also the one who would cox and cajole you and try to find out your worth through smooth talk and advise his bosses appropriately. But in spite of his seeming smoothness and civility, he could be as vicious as they come, if he sensed that you were not cooperative, make no mistake about that. I witnessed it when he participated in beating me up even though he once told me he couldn’t bear seeing someone being beaten.

The camp consisted of three Fulani-style huts, arranged in a triangle, their entrance facing each other. One of the huts housed the male captives, the other the female and the third was where the guards slept.

Our hut (Bukka) was made with tree branches set up in four corners in a rectangular shape. It was covered with a rubber tarpaulin with leaves spread on top as a camouflage to avoid detection from flying aircrafts. The leaves also kept the hut cool when the sun became too hot. It’s about 2 meters wide, 1.5 meters long and about 1.5 meters high. Because it’s not very high, you have to bend down a bit to enter it. The entrance was covered by the rest of the tarpaulin that covered the roof of the hut. It’s usually rolled up in the morning to allow ventilation and also for light to filter in. But it was rolled down at night or when it was raining to cover the entrance.

The floor of the Bukka was covered by leaves, shrubs and tender tree branches spread out to cover the whole floor. On top of the leaves were also spread cut-off sacks.

The remaining two huts were built in much the same way except that our hut, which was occupied by the male captives, was bigger than the other two. The hut occupied by the female captives was longer and deeper inside rather than wider as the male hut was built, but bigger than the guards’ hut, which was smaller than the rest of the huts.

 

Although the huts provided shelter when it rained, the water found its way into the huts and covered the whole floor. So, it was always a nightmare when it rained, because we couldn’t lie down as the whole floor of the hut became wet. Instead, we squatted or sat down on the wet floor. If we got tired, we just lay down on the wet floor till morning. And as we were tied with motorcycle chains, we remained in the hut till the sun came out and it was hot enough to dry our clothes. Though we were allowed to go out and ease ourselves, dragging each other with the chain, we were neither allowed to pray nor take bath, nor were we allowed to wash our clothes, so the hut was stinking to high heavens. They made us stay inside like pigs and the hut was like a pig sty. Come to think of it, a pig would be unhappy in such a sty!

But the female captives were neither tied nor were their faces covered. And they were allowed to roam around as they were the ones who cooked food and fetched water from a nearby stream. Other privileges the female captives enjoyed included praying, taking bath at the stream and washing their clothes.

Behind our Bukka was an open hut where the women captives were allowed to go out and rest and enjoy fresh air when the sun became too hot. It’s also where they sat and made conversation while they cooked food for all of us.

The food was the same dreary meal of jollof rice cooked with palm oil, salt and a few maggi cubes. We were fed the same meal twice a day, morning and evening. I avoided taking too much of the food, which tasted flat. Instead, I ate just enough to keep me going and drank just enough mouthfuls of water. The result was I didn’t pass stool for eight days on end.

There were twenty-one captives in all, including my daughter and I, initially. Later on, there were additions and subtractions as captives were released and more were brought in.

Of the twenty-one captives, fourteen were males and seven females. Five, made up of a young man in his twenties called Hafizu, his wife, his younger brother, Zakari, of about twelve or thirteen years, and two other women who were his brothers’ wives, were abducted from a village called Ƴar-Tasha, around Maska village in Funtua Local Government Area of Katsina State. They had been in detention for about a month before we were brought in.

A raid was carried out in their village where Hafizu’s father was shot in the hand before the five of them were abducted in their compound. It was a big village compound where the father, his children and the children’s families all lived. Every family unit lived in its section in the same large compound. Although contact had been made with their family, there was nobody to coordinate the collection of the ransom back home as Hafizu’s father was lying critically ill. Hafiizu begged them to release him and hold the rest so that he could go back home, sell his farm produce and pay the ransom.

As at the time I arrived at the camp they had refused to oblige him and there was an impasse. They continued to threaten him saying if they got tired of holding them, they would simply shoot them and throw their dead bodies into a nearby well.

They told us a story of an old man who had died in their hands before we came. They were beating him up when his blood pressure went up. They tried to revive him but he gave up the ghost and they carried his dead body and dumped it into the well.

One day while we were all sitting after having had breakfast, they came and said they were tired and that they were going to shoot Hafizu, so he should prepare and say his last prayer. They called his wife and told her to bid him farewell. It was so pathetic. They untied him and told him to get up. Hafizu stood there looking at his wife who also stood looking at him. He said he had forgiven her and asked her to forgive him. They both began to cry saying they had forgiven each other. They nearly had all of us crying before they told him they had changed their mind. The wife, who was a few months pregnant, nearly had a miscarriage.

Eventually, after I had been released, I learnt that Hafizu’s family managed to pay N1m ransom and secured their release.

Another group of five people was made up of men who were intercepted on the road along Zaria-Funtua, in a truck which came from Jos. Two of them were the driver and his hired hand. The other three were passengers who hitched a ride and were going to Makurɗi in Bakori Local Government Area of Katsina State.

A day after I was taken to the camp, the second batch of five who were intercepted on a truck were released. A ransom of N600,000 was paid in respect of the driver and his partner. But they couldn’t make any contact with the relatives of the other three passengers, none of whom had a phone nor could remember any phone number that could be called. Also, phone lines in Bakori Local Government Area had been disconnected just a day after we were abducted. Not knowing what to do with them, the bandits reluctantly released the other three together with the driver and his partner.

Another batch of five detainees I met in the camp was from Bakori town. They had been abducted ten days before my daughter and I. There was one Alhaji Adamu, an elderly person who was kidnapped together with his two daughters in his house. The eldest of the daughters was called Amina, a student in a health institution in Daura, Katsina State. She was in her early twenties. The other one, Amira, was Amina’s younger sister, about seventeen or eighteen years of age and a Senior Secondary School student at Funtua, Katsina State. The other two in this second batch of five were youths who were abducted just outside Alhaji Adamu’s house. They were chatting with their friends when the kidnappers came upon them. One of them, Auwal Tasi’u, was a Senior Secondary School Student. The other one was a Senior Secondary School graduate of about twenty-three years of age. He was the half brother of the Makaman Katsina, District Head of Bakori, Alhaji Idris Sule Idris.

A few days after I was released, Alhaji Adamu’s daughters were released and told to go and source for more money before their father was released. The eldest of the daughters, Amina, returned later to secure her father’s release. She was warned by people not to return, herself, but there was nobody to do their bidding. Everybody was scared lest he should be held. So, she chartered a Volkswagen Golf Estate Wagon which took her back to around Galadimawa in Giwa Local Government Area of Kaduna State. And from there, she chartered a motorcycle which took her further into the bush where she was stopped by a gunman she didn’t know. He began to ask her what she was doing around that area… Then, suddenly, the one they called Alhaji in our camp came out of nowhere. She immediately recognized him, even though he always wore a facemask at the camp. He told the other gunman that Amina was his guest. He took her on his motorcycle and rode further into the bush and stopped. He collected the money from her and told her to wait for her father there. He also told her that as the money wasn’t that much, he wasn’t going to share it with the others (recall that I had earlier mentioned that betrayal was their second nature?).

She continued to wait there until it was dusk without a sign of her father. She saw one lad tending his cattle and asked him to show her the way to Galadimawa, which he did. So, she retraced her steps and was trekking when she came across some policemen on patrol. They asked what she was doing there and she told them she was trying to find her way to Galadimawa. One of them took her on his motorcycle back to Galadimawa. She found the driver she had hired waiting for her as earlier agreed. They passed the night in some good Samaritan’s house. The following day they returned to Bakori. On reaching home, she found her father.

Then there was a batch of three abductees snatched inside their house in Ƙurami, Bakori Local Government Area of Katsina State. Ƙurami village is just a stone throw from Bakori town, a distance of about six kilometres. These abductees consisted of a mother and her two sons. The eldest, Abba, was a Senior Secondary School, SSS III, student who had just taken his National Examination Council, NECO, exam, waiting to start the West African Examination Council, WAEC, exam that would qualify him for entry into any Nigerian university. But it was not meant to be as the exam started while he was still in detention. His younger brother, Baffa, a tall, lanky, light skinned boy was a Senior Secondary School, SSS I, student of about fifteen years of age. He looked every inch a Fulani boy, which he was.

More than half of the people of Ƙurami village were resident Fulani, but due to intermarriage with the Hausas, they had lost their native language, Fulfulde, to Hausa. Most of them could only speak Hausa. But they had not lost their distinctive Fulani features and structures. What’s more, most of them were related to each other because of the intermarriage between and among themselves. The mother was a health worker in one of the Local Government Councils in Katsina State. She had broken her ankle while she was being brought along to the detention camp and could not walk. The trio of this batch of abductees was the family of Dr. Ibrahim Aminu Ƙurami, a veterinary doctor and the Katsina State House of Assembly member representing Bakori Local Government Area. Dr. Ƙurami, himself, had a year ago been kidnapped!

Several days after our arrival at the camp, some of the bandits told us that Dr. Ƙurami’s wife and her children would soon be released as their ransom had been paid. But on the day they were to be released, the guard, Magaji, came and told the woman that she would be taken to a person who would treat her broken ankle. So, she was taken on a motorcycle out of the camp. It was much later that we learnt she had actually been taken home without her children. They requested for more money before releasing the two boys, saying their father could afford to pay more.

Two days later, another intrigue occurred which further confirmed the treachery among the bandits. Two of the guards, Magaji and Yellow, came and told us that they were tired of the treachery being committed by their bosses who had collected the ransom and only released the woman, still holding the children. They said they were going to help the children escape and if any of us revealed the secret they would kill him.

It so happened that the little boy, Zakari, Hafizu’s younger brother, was assigned at the camp as the one escorting captives to the bush to ease themselves, as he was not tied up. He was considered too young to run away. So, when the plot was hatched to help Dr. Ƙurami’s children to escape, they told him to go with them. They summoned motorcyclists from somewhere who took them away. About an hour later, when the guards received confirmation that the children were safely out of reach, they raised an alarm. They called their bosses and told them that the three children who had gone to ease themselves had escaped. An alarm was sent throughout the forest that they should be apprehended and returned to the camp. Rumours began to filter back to us that they had been abducted again by another gang. Some even said one of the children had been shot in the foot.

After I had been released, I learnt that it was actually the two guards, Magaji and Yellow, who arranged the second kidnap of the children but told us that they had arranged to help them escape. They, actually, double-crossed their bosses and claimed the second ransom. What a treachery! This proved wrong the maxim that there’s honour even among thieves.

Yellow, who didn’t even know how to count money, gave my daughter, Laila, his share to count for him.

All the three children were then safely released and taken back to Ƙurami, including Zakari. He was later put on a vehicle that conveyed him back to his village where he reunited with his brother, Hafizu and the other three women.

Another kidnap victim I met in the camp was called Bello. He was abducted in his farm in the outskirts of Maska village in Funtua Local Government Area. He had gone there one early morning to do some work on the farm. He parked his bicycle and left his slippers by the roadside, took his hoe and went inside. Before he started working, he overheard some people talking in low tones and decided to investigate. He tiptoed towards where the noise was coming from. Just when he sighted the bandits sitting down with their rifles in a clearing in the middle of the farm, he felt something prodding his back. He turned around to find himself face to face with one of the bandits holding the rifle! They took him along and brought him to our camp.

They suspected Bello was a vigilante, whom they hated and feared. They tried to get him to admit he was one but he was adamant.

Several days after Bello was abducted, they couldn’t contact his relatives, partly because there was no service and partly because they couldn’t get a response from the phone numbers they were calling. Eventually, Bello gave the phone number of his best friend who lived in Ibadan. He established contact with Bello’s relatives. But no ransom was paid on his behalf at the time I left the camp. When my daughter returned home, she told me he was the only one left among those I found at the camp. And she said they had gotten tired of holding him without getting a ransom that they resorted to beating him up almost on a daily basis. He was really in a pitiable situation.

Those were the kidnap victims I found in the detention camp.

The few that were brought after me into our detention camp included the soldier who was abducted from the Nigerian Defence Academy, NDA, Kaduna, Major Christopher Datong. He was brought to our camp after he had spent seventeen days in another camp. He spent another six days in our camp before he was released one morning, just a few days before I was released. Several days later I heard over my car radio that he had been rescued by soldiers after destroying several bandits’ camps. I wished I was among those rescued together with him.

His story of how he was abducted was quite interesting, too. He said he had just returned from Kachia in Kaduna State, where he was supervising a building project. He was an architect in the technical corps of the Nigerian Army and an Instructor at the NDA. He lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment in the permanent site of the NDA at Afaka Campus, along Kaduna Airport Road. He was sleeping deep into the night when he heard a loud banging of the door in his neighbour’s house. It was as if someone was trying to knock down the door. He wondered what it was and decided to find out. He never, for one moment, thought it was marauders. It was impossible to think such a dare-devil security breach could happen right inside the NDA. When he opened his door, he found himself looking at men wielding AK 47 rifles. With quick reflexes born out of years of training, he jumped back into his room and locked the door. The kidnappers, unprepared for such quick reflexes and used to soft and untrained targets, were left standing outside. They quickly came back to their senses and started hammering at the door, trying to break it down.

Once inside, Major Datong went into his kitchen, closed and locked that door, too. He started making phone calls when he heard them break the front door and into the parlour. When they started breaking down the door to the kitchen where he was, he gently opened the back door and went outside. Unfortunately, he walked right into other bandits lurking outside and waiting for him to make just such a move. They handed him over to one of them and went back to attack other parts of the residential area.

An opportunity for escape again presented itself, when he noticed that the bandit guarding him had his attention elsewhere. He lashed out at him, hitting him hard and floored him. He started running when, again, he came up against other bandits, who caught him, pointing their guns at him. The bandit he had floored came blundering to meet them. He was like an enraged elephant, and livid with rage, he hit Datong on the head with his gun hard, breaking his head. Datong bled profusely and he was taken away.

The last, but not the least abductee that was brought into our camp after me was a short, thickset peasant. He was built like a prize fighter with shoulders as wide as a barn door and well-developed muscles and biceps. You could see that he was as strong as a bull. He seemed short of hearing as he had to cock his head to one side to hear what you were saying. I wasn’t surprised when he said he earned his living buying and selling cows, for, he had the persona of a matador. His name was Abdulmumini, and was abducted from a hamlet called Kurku in Funtua Local Government Area of Katsina State.

He said because of incessant attacks by bandits in their locality, most of the males, especially those well to do, had relocated to other places. So, when the bandits launched an attack, he was the only male abducted, together with nine women. Even their turkeys were stolen by the bandits, who made him hold two of the turkeys for them.

I later learnt that he was also released after I had left the camp.

Our arrival at the camp was greeted with fanfare. News of my capture had reached every nook and cranny of surrounding camps in the forest even before our arrival. Everybody wanted to behold, live, the journalist (Ɗanjarida). They came in droves wanting to talk to me. Many of them said they had never seen a journalist in their lives, they only heard them on the radio. Some of the captives, too, admitted that they had never seen a journalist in their entire lives. But, to my chagrin, the Fulani people’s love for radio has now been replaced by love for phones and listening to songs on MP3. I found none of the bandits with radio sets. Instead, they played Kannywood songs throughout the night on MP3. They asked all kinds of questions and also told me a lot of stories that pushed them to become bandits.

They talked of years of injustice they suffered generally from society: the police, judges, traditional rulers, as well as neglect on the part of the government. They also talked about how some of them suffered in the hands of their own Fulani kinsmen who rustled their cattle. They urged me to advise the government to negotiate with them rather than hunt them down and kill them.

On my part, I told them how the government planned to rehabilitate them and make their lives better. I explained to them how the Ruga settlement that the government planned to establish would affect their lives for the better. I told them how it would be unnecessary for them to be moving with their cattle all over the country once the Ruga system was established. They listened attentively how schools, hospitals and other social amenities would be established for them. They became interested in how jobs would be created for them and members of their family.

I enjoyed some sort of popularity and a little respect amongst all the different nearby camps. Some of them who came to see me even prayed for us to leave the place without any harm coming our way.

Of particular interest among those who wished us well was one who called himself Kachalla-Baban-Danni, who came from another camp. He abhorred any form of punishment against captives. He said he couldn’t bear to see anyone being beaten. He confessed, without prompting, that he had never taken a life, but admitted that he was a thief and he smoked weed.

Another person in the camp who enjoyed respect, even among the kidnappers, was Hajiya Rabi, the wife of the Katsina State lawmaker, Dr. Ibrahim Aminu Ƙurami, who was abducted together with her two sons, two days before we were kidnapped. They listened to and obeyed her. She intervened and prevented them from maltreating the captives. As she was a health worker, she was the one who administered injection and drugs to my daughter. The drugs were purchased by the bandits who asked my daughter to write down the names of the drugs she used when the nature of her ailment was explained to them.

After Hajiya Rabi was released, Amina, the daughter of Alhaji Adamu, who was abducted alongside her father and sister, Amira, ten days before we were kidnapped, took over my daughter’s treatment. Amina was also a student at a health institution in Daura, Katsina State. Amina was even made to treat one of the bandits who, when he felt unwell, bought some drips which he told her to administer on him.

At our arrival, while my respect lasted, they provided a plate in which Alhaji Adamu and I were served food, separating us from the rest of the crowd, saying we were elders and deserved some respect. When the respect began to wane, and whenever they felt mean, they ignored us and made us eat together with the rest.

But vicious as they were, and in spite of their meanness, most of the time, the bandits were jovial and funny. They were fond of cracking jokes and making fun of one another. They had nicknames for most of the women captives. They called one of the women abducted together with Hafizu from Ƴar-Tasha, Maska area, Bagwara and the other one Ƙwaila. I didn’t get to know the reason for those nicknames. But, I found out why they nicknamed Amina, Mai-gyaran-radio, meaning, radio technician. One of them said he had once overheard over the radio one Amina addressed as such.

My daughter, Laila, was also nicknamed, Service. They said she was so tall that she could be likened to a communication mast. They said she was so tall and beautiful that she must be a descendant of Niger Republic Tuaregs. That assumption couldn’t be too far off from the truth as my paternal ancestors were Tuaregs while my maternal ancestors were Fulani.

In spite of our predicament, however, we found time for conversations that took our minds away from our woes. That was when the guards were out of earshot. I deliberately told them stories that made us laugh so hard that we temporarily forgot we were captives. One day, while recalling with nostalgia the good food we were missing at home, I told them my favourite food was Amala with Ewedu and beans soup (Gbegri), and goat meat. I said I liked the smell of he-goat that came out of the goat meat. That made Major Datong, the soldier abducted from NDA laugh so hard. I hadn’t seen him laugh since he came to our camp.

Another story I told them that brought laughter out of them was one I heard about a man who had gone to Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage. While locked in his room at home, he suddenly noticed that the house was on fire. As he was in the midst of Arabs who could not understand Hausa, he was at a loss as to how to alert them the house was on fire, since he couldn’t speak Arabic. Then he remembered from some verses he had read in the Holy Qur’an that in Arabic, fire was called Nari. And he knew fin in Arabic meant “in”. He was known to his Arab neighbours as Malam Bello. So, he shouted at the top of his voice, “Malam Bello fin Nari”, meaning, Malam Bello in fire! When there was no response, he added a few more Arabic words for effect, and said, “Malam Bello fin Nari, khalidina fiha abadan, meaning, Malam Bello is in fire and will remain there forever. We laughed so hard at this joke that some of us were in tears. What made it ironic was the fact that one of us was Bello by name!

But the saddest day for me during my stay at the camp was the day I was beaten up by the bandits. They asked how much I was willing to pay to bail my daughter and I out. I told them I would pay half a million naira. About five of them descended on me and beat me up with tree branches. I thought they were going to kill me. They even threatened to torture me by tying my hands with rubber rope which would stop the flow of blood to my hands. That way, I could even lose the use of my limbs. But, fortunately, they never did.

A lot of the bandits who heard about my beating were sad, especially those from another camp. They tried, for several days, to console me. Fellow captives were also sad and, at the same time, scared that it could happen to them, too.

My stay at the camp came to an abrupt end as suddenly as it had started, ten days from the day we were abducted. A day before I was released, I was taken to where they usually took us for phone calls. It was on a slightly raised ground where the service was clearer. Phone service had not been cut off then in Kaduna State. Initially, I thought I was going to take another beating. But they soon connected me with my son, Nasif, who had been negotiating with them for my release. He said they had managed to get the money and would come and take us the following day.

Even though the other captives and I had been told I would be released the following day, we were not sure when the time came that it was the time I was going to be released. They tried to hide the fact, probably because of Laila.

When they came, they pretended to take me out to make phone a call because there was no service in the usual place. A young boy of about fifteen years of age was sent to fetch me on a motorcycle. We rode for about an hour before he stopped somewhere in the bush under a mango tree. He said he was going to contact them and get instructions before we proceeded. He was told to wait there. While we waited, he brought out half a chicken wrapped in a paper and polythene bag from his bag which was tied on the carrier of the motorcycle. He shared it with me, which we ate with a bottle of sprite, which he also gave me half a bottle. I appreciated his kindness and ate the meal gratefully.

As we were eating that chicken part I reflected on our ride from the camp and realized that if I wasn’t accompanied by one of them, I would have been kidnapped again by another gang. Twice, we had come across some gunmen on motorcycles, who stopped and talked to the young boy before allowing us to proceed. The forest was infested by them.

At last, a call came through and the boy was asked to take me to the appointed place. We rode for another, maybe ten to fifteen minutes before we came upon them. About thirty of them rode on eleven motorcycles, three-on-one, together with my cousin, Musa Ahmadu, who delivered the money to them.

It was only then they told me to remove the rag covering my face. They asked if I knew who he was, and he immediately interrupted, saying he was my neighbour. That’s what he had already told them earlier, fearing that they might decide to hold him, too, if they knew we were related. They took me aside and told me to go home and source for more money before my daughter was released. They gave me five thousand naira out of the ransom money and told us to use it as transport money. Two riders were asked to take us close to the next village. We rode for about another ten minutes before reaching the outskirts of a village. They dropped us near the village and said we would find a vehicle to convey us to Zaria from the village.

We discovered that the name of the village was Sabon-Layi, close to Kidandan in Giwa Local Government Area of Kaduna State. As it was nearly dusk, we were advised to pass the night there lest we be kidnapped by another gang.

We spent the night at the village head’s house, who gave us food and shelter. His brother, Rabilu, a student at a higher institution washed my clothes. He lent me his kaftan and trousers which I wore until morning when my clothes were dry. We arrived in Gwargwaje, Zaria, the following morning after driving in a commercial vehicle for about fifty minutes. We paid one hundred naira each for the ride.

At Zaria, we were received by Nasif and my three other cousins, Hassan Ibrahim, Ibrahim Barau and Ibrahim Muhammad, before we proceeded to Bakori.

The two other cousins, Hassan Ibrahim, Ibrahim Barau and my son, Nasif, had come from Katsina, with Musa Ahmadu, to deliver the ransom and take us back home. They were instructed to go to Yakawada, in Giwa Local Government Area of Kaduna State. From there, they proceeded to Fatika, where Musa Ahmadu took the money on a commercial motorcycle and proceeded, as instructed, into the bush. On the way, they were intercepted by the bandits on motorcycles. They paid the commercial motorcyclist and took Malam Musa to the destination on their own motorcycle.

 

Part IV

The Release of Laila

Negotiations for the release of Laila commenced in earnest as soon as I returned home. By then, phone service had been cut off in about half of the local government areas in Katsina State, including Bakori Local Government Area from where my daughter and I were kidnapped. So, throughout the negotiation period, I relocated to Katsina where there was full phone service. To compound matters, Kaduna State followed suit and cut off phone service in several local government areas, including Giwa, the area where our kidnappers were located. But that did not deter them from calling us almost on a daily basis. They moved around to areas where there was service and called us.

I became anxious to know what condition my daughter was in. I had heard stories of how kidnappers killed victims and still went ahead and collected ransom. As if they had read my thoughts, one day they connected us with Laila, who begged us to hasten and pay the ransom and set her free. More days went by while we tried to put together the amount they wanted, which was huge, on the one hand, and begged them to bring the amount down to what we could afford, on the other hand. Time went by while we did that and Laila spent another nineteen days after I was released before we reached a compromise with the kidnappers. In all, she spent twenty-nine days in captivity.

People, again, came to our aid and contributed in cash and kind until we were able to meet their demand. When we finally put together the amount they wanted, they gave us instructions on how to take the money to them.

Whoever was going to deliver the ransom should take a car to a bridge close to Sabon-Layi, the village we passed the night after they released me. That he should park the car immediately after passing the bridge and await further instructions. They asked for the colour and make of the car that would convey the ransom.

I hired the same vehicle that conveyed Amina, the girl that was kidnapped from Bakori together with her sister and father, when she went back to secure the release of her father. The driver knew the terrain well, as he used to convey people to a market in Galadimawa, along that route. Next, I hired the services of a member of a vigilante group to escort me. I decided that I would personally convey the money because of the imminent risks associated with such a venture.

For one, it was a lot of money to be carried and if you didn’t get a trusted person, you could end up losing the money and not securing the girl. Secondly, because of the risks involved, not many people would volunteer to take that risk. We had heard stories of people who had been held by kidnappers when they went to pay the ransom. I reasoned that it was a calculated risk if I went, because I was their captive and they might not hold me again.

The three of us drove to the place going through Giwa town. We reached the place at exactly 1.45pm. We had agreed that I should be there between 1am and 2pm. We parked at the appointed spot and waited, not knowing what to expect. I thought one of them would come on a motorcycle and take me inside the forest like they did to my cousin, Musa Ahmadu, when he went to secure my release. We didn’t wait for long when, looking around, to my left in a farm, about half a kilometre away, I saw some movement under a big tree. I looked again and saw them sitting down. They then got up and waved – about eight of them, all armed with rifles. I waved back at them and they beckoned to me to go to them. I gave the money to the vigilante and told him to take it to them. Without hesitation, he took the money and went through the mashy farm towards them. A few meters before he reached them, three of them came to meet him. They collected the money and went together with him back to the rest.

Something happened that scared the daylight out of us while we watched him taking the money to them. Suddenly, about seven motorcycles appeared, coming towards us. Two bandits were on each of the motorcycles, all carrying AK 47 rifles hanging on their shoulders. For a moment, I thought it was another group coming to kidnap us. But they passed harmlessly near us, appearing not to be looking at us. I heaved a sigh of relief when they passed.

I looked back again towards the vigilante and saw him coming back towards us, alone. And the bandits had disappeared into the forest with the money. I wondered what that meant. When the vigilante came within earshot, he called out to me, “Alhaji, they said you should wait there”. He went back and sat down to wait under the tree. I guessed they were going to bring the girl.

I told the driver we should pray while we waited. As soon as we finished praying, we saw the vigilante coming along with the girl. She appeared to be fine as she was walking on her feet. I heaved another sigh of relief and thanked God for his mercies. Soon, they arrived where we were waiting and we drove towards Zaria to meet my cousins, my brother, Aliyu Abdulkadir and my son, Nasif, who were waiting for us at Gwargwaje.

Ahmed Abdulkadir is a retired director at the National Broadcasting Commission NBC.

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