Dr. Abarshi’s Driver Narrates Ordeal With Captors

Dr. Rahmatu Abarshi, a lecturer with the Kaduna Polytechnic and former head of Electrical and Electronics Engineering of the institution who was kidnapped alongside with her daughter and driver on April 24, 2022 regained freedom recently.

It would be recalled that the lecturer was abducted alongside her daughter and driver after the distribution of palliatives to Fulani orphans at Lubtaga village at Lere district in Kaduna State.

Driver of lecturer, Suleiman Ibrahim, narrated their ordeal in the hands of the kidnappers when he said; “We were just coming from the distribution of materials meant for Fulani orphans who were between the ages of 4 and 6 in Lere. We were on our way back along with one boy who invited the donor, Dr. Rahmatu Abarshi, to the village to extend her charitable gesture to the orphans under her NGO – ‘Barkindo Rahama Initiative’

“The person who invited the philanthropist had the same father and mother with his mum, so the boy is the donor’s son by hereditary extension.    So on our way back after the distribution, we were following through the Jene bridge when the relation suggested that we should follow Zangon Kataf, instead of through Saminaka, but I told him there was insecurity there”.

Suleiman added, “Since there is insecurity problem through Zangon Kataf, we should follow Saminaka, when lastly he persuaded me that we should follow the Zangon Kataf road.

“We were moving on the road when suddenly we came to another village at almost sunset on the 20th  day of the last Ramadan. The boy (relation to the donor) stopped us and left inside the village after he gave us a GSM number.

“He took a long time inside the village, so we decided to call him through the GSM number he gave us, but unfortunately someone from the village picked the phone, and after sometime the boy came back to us.

“We continued the journey and not so long after we passed Kachia, the boy was phoning some people while we were driving, telling them to cover their faces, and at a certain point by rail crossing the boy said he would drop there. We persuaded him to go together but he refused and dropped at that point where he had a friend to sleep with”.

“So while we continued our journey without him, one military vehicle Hilux came and passed us. Then, we felt like following that vehicle and while on the way we came to one village, Kashe-ice where some armed people shot and burnt it, and killed some of the soldiers, a few ran for their lives, their weapons were carted away by the robbers. Ahead of us after the road block, I was seeing a mobile police check point.”

Suleiman said they were later blocked, forced out, and beaten with the donor, Hajiya, and the robbers were saying she was the one, she was the one.

“One of them told me to run into the bush. I didn’t run for the fear that people would say I was part of the planned robbery, so I came closer to Hajiya’s daughter who was a captive.”

He said they took them close to one mountain in the bush in a J5 and some on motorcycles.

He added that they took them to a den where they slept, and at day break, the robbers directed them to contact their relations that they were kidnapped for ransom.

“One of the kidnappers planned to kill Rahama and marry her daughter, but some of his colleagues prevented him from doing that, but instead he killed one Christian person, and they kept on beating those kidnapped every day with hard labour.

“Later we were taken to another place, and left behind, one of the captives was the Sarki of Rijana village. a ransom of N30 million was paid for us at the new place, but despite the ransom, it was planned that they would kill me together with eight others the following day. But those on guard of the victims noted that killing the eight kidnapped meant loss to their side, hence they took them away to another destination near Sabon Birni.

“The guards told us to each pay N500, 000 ransom, but it was later changed to N1 million each. We suffered a lot while trekking inside the forests. Some of our abductors were foreigners. Hajiya and I used to eat mangoes for breakfast every day, it was a hell.”