Five abducted serving members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) who were released from their abductors on Monday narrated what it cost their families to free them from the dungeons of their captors.
Narrating their ordeals on Tuesday, the corps members said their abductors made them to trek from past 10 pm when they were abducted till 7 am the following day in the bush before they were allowed to rest.
According to the corps members, their abductors collected the sum of N5 million as ransom from their families before regaining their freedom.
They told journalists in Akure, the Ondo State capital, that the kidnappers also collected beverages comprising one carton of peak milk, one pack of cigarette and 10 packs of rice and chicken.
According to them, “We boarded a bus from Abia State to Onitsha, but our driver was not fast enough. One of the park drivers took us to where we boarded another bus going to Akure. We got there around 2pm but the driver did not take off immediately. So, we left Onitsha Park around 5pm with 9 passengers in a Siena bus.
“We were getting to Ondo State around 10 pm when the incident happened. They flashed the torch on the driver and the driver said “Oga, I don’t see you.
“They fired him twice the moment he made that statement and the woman sitting next to him, and one guy was butchered. Two people died and we don’t know about the guy that was butchered and ran away.
“Then they brought us out of the vehicle and took us inside the bush, we trekked from past 10 pm till around 7 am the following day in the bush. The kidnappers were five in number and their age range should be around 25 and not up to 30. They were speaking Hausa/Fulani language and they have one interpreter.
“They tortured us and we were only given garri and water. At first, they asked for N30 million per person but as the negotiation was going on they brought it down to N3 million, so they now asked us to bring in N1 million each.
“We slept inside the bush throughout the day, we heard the bark of a dog and the sound of cows in the bush and we passed through farmland when we were coming out, and we didn’t meet anybody on the road. Then our brothers came with what they asked for which is 3 Hollandia yogurt, 2 loaves of bread, one carton of peak milk, one pack of malt drinks, 5 bottles of Fearless, one pack of YES cigarette and 10 packs of rice and chicken and N1 million each with the total of N5 million.”
