Kidnappings on some highways across the country have reached a crescendo. CHUKWUDI AKASIKE and SIMON UTEBOR capture the shocking stories of some victims of this vicious crime
Throughout the night of May 16, 2019,
Angela Nkereuwem, a 21-year-old lady from Mbo Local Government of Akwa
Ibom State, diligently studied her Economics textbook in preparation for
the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination holding the
following day.
The next day being May 17, she woke up as the cock in the neighbourhood
crowed to prepare her trip to a secondary school in Ikorodu area of
Lagos State–venue of the examination.
She exuded confidence because she had
read well. Her happiness knew no bounds and in that state of euphoria,
she left for the exams centre. But what Nkereuwem did not realise was
that trouble was lurking around the corner on that day.
Having finished her paper around 2.30pm,
she left for their home in an estate in Ikorodu. She mounted a
commercial motorcycle. Not quite five minutes into their journey, a
black tinted Sport Utility Vehicle with four occupants on the vehicle
pulled through and overtook the bike she was on.
As soon as the vehicle stopped, two men
and a woman came out of the vehicle, seized her and used a handkerchief
to clean her face. She lost consciousness at that point.
The motorcyclist who carried her to the
spot she was abducted was allowed to escape by the kidnappers who
appeared not to be interested in doing anything to him.
Nkereuwem said after her abductors used
the hanky on her, she did not know anything again, noting that she woke
up the following day in the kidnappers’ hideout in a forest along the
Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
The victim, who escaped by a whisker,
said, “After the kidnappers blocked the motorcycle carrying me home and
using a handkerchief to wipe my face, I did not know anything again. I
woke up the following day in a thick forest where my captors erected a
makeshift structure the next day by 1 am.
“When I woke up, I noticed that the
place I found myself was strange. I did not want to talk so that they
won’t know I had woken up. When I looked round, I saw other ladies in
the vegetable state in that place. I started praying within me that
their evil machination would not work.
“As I was praying, an elderly man among
them asked those who kidnapped me to bring me to the shrine. I was taken
to a shrine in the forest. After making all the necessary incantations,
the elderly man, who was like their witch doctor, became furious,
saying that my head refused the sacrifice.’’
The lady said she witnessed the killing of three females whose body parts were used for ritual purposes.
According to her, it was where they kept
her to be killed the next day that the woman who cooks for the
kidnappers came to set her free
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