Kidnapped For Ransom: My Personal Experience – Part 8

As usual, the phone was set on speaker mode, so everyone on ground was in on the conversation I had with my wife. It was that conversation that reminded me of something that made me have a moment to shed some tears that morning. But then I would soon realise that crying while being held hostage can earn you multiple slaps on the head.

Why I shed some tears

Something dawned on me a as I finished talking with my wife on the phone that morning: that Thursday was when my late elder brother would be lying in state at our family compound before the final interment, on the same day.

I was meant to be there in flesh and blood to pay him my last respect and also join my other siblings to give him a befitting burial. But there I was in a thick forest far away from home, held against my will by AK-47 gun-wielding Fulani men who think that taking people hostage for ransom payment is a proud business to make a living from.

“So I will not be there to witness the burial of my late brother who was like a father to me?” I soliloquized.

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Kidnapped For Ransom: My Personal Experience – Part 6

As the rains subsided, we became relieved of the massive cold we were experiencing. The rays of the Sun began to sift through the canopies of the trees towering above us unto the forest floors. And we felt warm in our bodies as the wet clothes clinging tightly to our frames began to dry out.

When the ransom was reduced

The leader of the kidnappers’ gang started to engage us in more conversations while the rest of them kept guard over us with their AK-47s consistently pointed at us as the stench of their cigarette smoking pervaded the air.

Surprisingly, he left the circle of his fellow kidnappers and sat a few feet away from where we were, talking to us in turns. The Papa in our midst was the first focus of his attention.