8Rijana
road in Kaduna state, almost four years ago. Our car was attacked, the driver
and passengers ran into the bush but the kidnappers chased us out to take us
captive. Our car was not the only one caught by the kidnappers, there were many
people travelling on that road who were caught in the gun fire by the
kidnappers. There were several commercial buses as well.
This same spot had seen many kidnappings take place for several years; even
the train bombing that took place after my kidnap was around that area. Many
times, the governor at that time made many promises to ensure the safety of
people but many, many people were still kidnapped there and the government did
nothing to get rescue or pay ransom. It was the families of the abducted people
that raised money for their freedom.
I am telling you this so you understand me well.
When I got kidnapped. We were matched into the forest for hours. We trekked
for hours in a single file. This was after the kidnappers had taken our phones,
ID Cards, ATM cards, and personal belongings. I mean everything we had in our
possessions. A few of us were beaten to pulp, especially the men who the
kidnappers suspected were in the military or even customs. They beat them like
mad!
It was Sule who told me what to say to their leader whenever I was called to
speak to my family about the ransom. You see, they would beat some of us, then
give us a phone to tell our relatives to hurry with the ransom. Many people
whose families couldn’t raise the ransom were beaten with iron chains.
Especially one Yoruba man who’s family agreed to pay N120million.
So as I said, Sule helped me. He promised to help me escape if my mother
couldn’t come up with the ransom and Honda bike they asked her to come up with.
Alas, my family couldn’t raise the money. So the leader said he was going to
let his boys rape me!
Sule began to plead for me. He said to him that my mother was a widow who
didn’t have anyone to help her. He finally convinced the leader to lower the
ransom. He did but it wasn’t immediately. It took days of threats, days of
being taunted by the other gang members that they would enjoy raping me once
their leader gives the go-ahead and days of me crying and begging Sule to help
me.
I was abducted on my way back from school along that notorious I met Sule
Now, among our abductors was who I will call Sule for the sake of his identity. Sule was young, maybe in his early 20s or late teens at that time. He is not educated but he was good with pidgin. The thing about the kidnappers is that they hate people who speak English. So if they catch you and all you can speak is English, you will be beaten like mad. I speak Fulfulde, even though I am Hausa. So I was able to communicate and understood them easily but the majority of those of us captured didn’t speak the language. Sule, from the very beginning, was different from the rest. He spoke Hausa, Fulfulde and pidgin. Though he carried a huge gun like the rest and tied a scarf to cover most of his face. I knew from his arms and legs that he was a young man when he first caught my attention. He heard when their big boss was interrogating me, asking me who would pay my ransom. He heard me say I was a house help and was the only child of a widowed mother…even though this isn’t true but I was looking to see if they would show me mercy. I told him my bosses would not even give me 10kobo if I got into an accident while running an errand for them. I didn’t let them know I spoke English, or that I was a student or that I lived with my parents. When we were attacked, the first thing I three away as I got into the bush was my ID Card and my phone. Having heard stories about these things, you sort of get prepared, though no matter how prepared you are, you will still be surprised.My abductor began to court me
Two days after we got to the camp that they kept us. Before they began to call us to speak to our relatives and ask for ransom, Sule came and sat beside me one night and spoke in pidgin. I was at first afraid of him but he had removed his scarf and I could see he was young. My first thought after that was, ‘abi he wants to rape me?’ But there was nothing in the way he spoke to me that made me think so. He said, “I sabi, small, small pidgin.” He wanted to speak to me so his other gang members wouldn’t hear what he was saying. He said, “Why you wan know book as you bi woman?” I replied, “I no know book, I bi housegirl…” He said, “No lie, I see your card…” “I beg, no tell dem, I beg…” From that small conversation, over the next few weeks I was in that camp, I got to know more about Sule. In fact, his colleagues began to call me his wife because they noticed he always came to sit beside me at night. Now. You have to understand that while I was in captivity, while my family was trying to raise the ransom for me, I got to know a lot of things about these kidnappers through Sule. I got to know he was forced to join them after his village was completely destroyed with their farmlands and he and the rest of his community that survived ran into the bush. Hunger made them join the bandits. It wasn’t love and before the bandits fully admitted them into their fold, they made them swear to some blood oaths and the Quran.He was also a victim
That was when Sule knew they were not real Muslims. Real Muslims will not ask you to swear blood oaths or use the Quran to kill innocent people. But he had joined them, had killed a few people in their raids and he didn’t know the way out.