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‘How I escaped after my abductors slept off ’

By Victor Akinkuolie

A kidnapped victim who recently regained his freedom from kidnappers den, Mr. Ademola Adeeko, has narrated his harrowing experience in the hands of the dare devil kidnappers.

He also shared his escape from their custody while the seven man gang slept off.

The victim, an Akure-based timber contractor also dealing in fabrics and clothing materials was recently abducted by  a seven man kidnapping gang in Aisegba-Ekiti, Gbonyin Local Government Area of Ekiti State.

Narrating his ordeal to The Hope in a private health facility in Ado-Ekiti,  capital of Ekiti State, Adeeko, said on that fateful day he was in  his business premises around a popular sawmill at Aisegba-Ekiti

He explained that he had never been under any threat since  he started doing business around the area for over five years before he was abducted in the evening of Wednesday  June  8,  2022  at about 5:30 pm.

“While I was at my place of business, I started hearing  sporadic gun shots. People around the axis were alarmed at the commotion and began to run helter skelter  for dear lives. I had to run for my life  too, without knowing that the kidnappers had planted themselves strategically in  the area.

“I never knew  that I was their target. They  had already laid  an  ambush in the direction I was running to. So on sighting them, I fell to the ground. Unfortunately, I was caught and whisked to an unknown destination.

“While I was with them in the bush, I discovered that one Hausa guy who was also into timber business had been  abducted as well.  He was being whisked along with us and he was in the rear.

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It wasn’t up to ten minutes that they shot him along the way. I now asked one of them why the man was  killed.

“He told me that they killed the guy because he complained that he could not trek and he was not coming up with the ransom.

I heard the gun shot  three times. I was scared as we watched the man die. They now told me that if I  cooperate with them, I would return to my family in peace. They also threatened that if I did not cooperate, they would kill me the way they killed the Hausa  man”.

Explaining further, Adeeko said the kidnappers were seven in number. While only four of them were armed and carried AK 47.

He narrated how they took him to an unknown destination in the forest which he believed to be their hideout. He told The Hope that they trekked for over eight hours in the bush before they reached their destination.

“At about  3am the following day, the kidnappers made us to stop at a cocoa plantation. The place was really bushy, as if the owner of the cocoa plantation had abandoned the place for like ten years.

” They informed me that at that juncture, they needed to rest and they tied my hands to the back and also my legs.” 

Lamenting over the situation, the victim said he was made to trek several kilometers in the bush within 48-hours bare footed. He said that he was given serious beating all on an empty stomach.

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“They collected my phone, and took all the money found in my pockets. When it was around  3pm on the second day, they put on my phone, asking me the network I use and I told them that I use both MTN and GLO.

“They used my phone in spite of the unstable network in that forest to reach out to my family. While calling my family, they began to beat me again for my people at home to hear how I was being tortured and to feel the pains I was passing through. In the course of all that, they actually demanded for N100  million  ransom”

“I started pleading with them, telling them that I was just a petty trader, that if I  had such money, I would have been running a standard boutique instead of moving about to sell clothes. They insisted on collecting the N100 million.”

“I kept begging and persuading them to accept two million naira but they said no. The leader of the gang said they were seven in number, apart from some other people out there who were his partners in the deal. He said those people would equally get their own share of the money. They later switched off my phone and we continued trekking again.

“As God would have it, on the third day while still in their midst, the seven of them slept off in the night and I escaped. That’s how God delivered me,”  the victim explained.

“I walked throughout the night and later came out of the bush in far away Kogi State.  I saw an old woman and her children going to farm early in the morning.

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“She was the one who  told me where I was and showed me the way to the main road. A motorcycle operator assisted me and took me to the police station in Ekirinade in Kogi State. It was the police that took me back to Ekiti State after obtaining my statement,”  he concluded.

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