Save for divine intervention, an Ibadan, Oyo State-based Mr Akeem Adekunle would have been long dead after he boarded a painted commercial taxi, popularly known as Nissan Micra, operated by men of the underworld on Friday, September 27, 2024.
Adekunle, who lives in the Olodo area of Lagelu local government area, left his house to Sango to send a parcel through public transport to the Oke-Ogun area of the state.
He told LEADERSHIP that his ordeals began when he boarded another taxi going to Ojoo around 3pm on the fateful day on his way back to Akobo for a meeting with his social association.
“Two men were seated at the front seat beside the driver. I sat as the last passenger at the back seat with a woman who had obviously wept profusely together with another man beside her.
“My thought was that they were a couple coming from the Sango Police Station, which is just opposite the location where I boarded the taxi, after a dispute. I later discovered that they were partially unconscious because they both didn’t utter a word throughout my ordeal.”
He further explained that instead of heading towards Ojoo, the taxi driver said he wanted to pass through Agbowo axis to come out from the Lagos–Ibadan Expressway before heading to Ojoo.
“Since I was going to Akobo, I considered it a shorter route and cost-saving too. So, I told him it was also good for me. A few minutes later, we got to a deserted place and the vehicle stopped. One of the passengers at the front seat joined us at the back seat. I protested until the man pulled out a gun and announced that I had boarded a wrong vehicle. I became jittery and had to cooperate with them because I didn’t know if the gun was real or a toy,” Adekunle said.
He further said that as the taxi moved on, the man began to hit him with a fetish object on the chest expectedly to make him unconscious, but they were surprised that when they got close to the General Gas Bus Stop, he pleaded to be left off. “They ignored my pleadings, but instead, they further hit me on the legs and sternly warned me to behave.”
He added that the members of his social club, where he was headed for a meeting, called his phone because it was unusual for him to attend their meetings late, and when he picked the call, he told the members that he had been kidnapped and uncertain of what fate awaited him.
Seeing him answering the phone call also got the man holding him enraged and at that point, the hoodlum used the object to hit him again, seized his two phones and switched them off.
“We were going out of Ibadan and were about to turn towards Challenge from the Lagos–Ibadan Expressway when they spotted policemen on the bridge. They reversed the car and drove towards the Toll Gate. We drove about a kilometer from the Toll Gate when they parked. One of them who had been making calls to an unknown person on the phone alighted and went to make another call.
“He came back to ask for my name but I gave him the wrong name. He furiously returned a few minutes later and threatened to ‘waste me’ if I gave him a wrong name again. He hit my head thrice with one old traditional Yoruba cap. At this point, I was forced to give him my real name, and he went back to further speak with the unknown person on the other side of the phone,” he said.
When the man returned, Adekunle said he (the caller) uttered to his gang members that, “Baba said he’s a ‘bad market’, he said we should return him to where he was picked.”
At that point, he said he was not sure who was to be returned but the abductors turned back, driving on ‘one-way’ to join the road leading to New Garage, then Akala Express until they arrived at Apata and then turning towards Dugbe.
“I wanted to alert the police at any slightest opportunity but they were very smart. The three of them were Yoruba but also speaking a slang I didn’t understand. The driver was driving at a very reasonable speed not to be suspected and each time we came close to the traffic light, he would stop at a distance and only move when the light passed vehicles,” Adekunle said.
He said the taxi pulled over on Mokola Bridge where he was searched by the men he said to be in their 40s and they collected the sum of N14,000 cash found on him; and further asked if he had his ATM card but he had none.
Adekunle said he was lucky to be pushed out of the vehicle between 6:30pm and 7pm while the hoodlums threw N500 note at him to find his way home. “They had returned my phones to me and at that point. I called my association members that I had been freed.”
Asked why he did not report the matter to the police, he said he was too jittery to spot the plate number of the vehicle, stressing that although the hoodlums were not masked, they avoided direct facial contact with him and he could not recognise any of them.
Adekunle, therefore, urged security agents to be more aware of the new antics of criminal elements and enjoined commuters to be vigilant when plying commercial taxi called Micra in Ibadan.
“If possible, passengers should only board taxis at designated parks, but for those whose rotes would not permit, they have to be very vigilant. If not for God, my fate could have been sealed because I don’t know what could have happened to the other man and woman in the car,” he stated.
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