Kidnapping is very rampant in many countries of the world in fact it is a moving business in many places. Types of kidnapping common among us today is the one chance kidnapping and recently militant kidnappers, their targeted victims are innocent people.
Many times we hear testimonies of people who survived or escaped from kidnappers or ritual killers.
Ebikeme Clark former Commissioner for Information and son of foremost Ijaw leader, Edwin Clark, was one among several other victims that survived a kidnapping. He was kidnapped on Wednesday, April 2, 2014 and released on Saturday, April 5, 2014.
Here is a brief account of his terrible ordeal in the hands of his captors:
“On the 2nd of April, 2014, I took N2,000,000.00 to Kiagbodo to ensure the workers at the proposed Edwin Clark University, Kiagbodo, construction site are paid their outstanding monies and to inspect the level of work done. I arrived in my bus with my driver at about 11 am. At about 4:30pm, it started raining heavily and I was about leaving when a group of young men carrying guns stormed my bus.
“I was about handing over the money to the foreman to complete payments when the gun-men came. I thought they came for the money so I handed over the bag containing the money to one of them. But to my surprise, one of them hit my head with the gun asking me to lie down, and went ahead to drag me into my bus.
“The other gunmen entered into the bus too and one of them took over the steering and they drove me away. On getting to the Erhuwaren Bridge, they brought me out of the bus and took me under the bridge into a waiting speedboat with two other members of the gang inside the boat.
“They took me away in the heavy rain. They laid me down on the floor of the boat, while it was still raining. Bleeding from my head and shivering as a result of the heavy down pour, they drove me for about 5 hours before we got to where they kept me for the night. While we were going, they got a call from somebody in the village telling them that there was more money in the bus and at the same time people are already being arrested in my village,” he explained.
The first night gone, the struggle continued: “On the evening of the next day, they took me out to the bigger river to make a call to my father and to my wife. They demanded the sum of N50 million from my father and N10 million from me personally. They discovered that my father’s phone was being used to track our location so they became angry and started threatening to kill me. They said they expected my father to quickly pay them the ransom, rather than risk the life of his son; that my father was proving stubborn as usual, despite the position of his son at the moment.
“Due to the fear for their lives, they decided to take me far into the interior of the creeks, saying if my father chooses to bring helicopter to bomb the place, we will all die. On Friday night, they took me deep into the sea; tied my hands and legs. They said I should say my last prayers adding that my father is very stubborn. They threatened to throw me into the river to get drown unless my wife can save the situation by getting them at least the sum of N4.5 million.
“They called my wife, who out of desperation, promised to get the money for them, begging them to please spare my life for just one more night. I was kept in the open swamp forest infested with very dangerous and poisonous reptiles like snakes, lizards, mosquitoes, etc. They had two local guides/aids that assisted them in moving us from one location to the other and also arranged for food stuff and mattresses.”
With the second night gone, the mood has begun to change. “On Saturday night, they brought me out in a new boat they got and told me that they would take me to the Republic of Cameroon and keep me there for as long as it will take my father to pay them the sum of N100 million. I noticed they had extra jerry cans of fuel in the boat. At that point, we started heading into the deep sea. As we were going, calls started to come into their phones and they slowed down to take the calls. I heard the leader of the group who is nick-named Network calling the person with whom he was speaking “Sir.”
“The person insisted he wanted to hear from me. They handed the phone over to me to speak to the person. But before speaking, they warned that I should tell the person that I was not maltreated. They then said that they do not have any other option than to let me go. But some members of the gang were against my release adding that they could not understand why I should be let go without the payment of a ransom, after what they had gone through for four days.
“The leader, however, insisted that I must be allowed to go, that he had been ordered that I must be released in a matter of hours. They took me to a place close to Bomadi and gave me N5,000.00 ( five thousand naira only) for transportation. The leader of the gang made efforts to ensure that I got to Bomadi safely, warning me that where I was dropped off was unsafe and that I could be kidnapped again by another gang,” he explained.
“After my release, on Monday, April 7, the leader of the gang sent me a text message, apologising to my father and to me using my glo network line which they seized from me. The txt message stated thus:
‘Mr. Ebikeme I hope u ar ok, in life a lot of things happen dat is part of life and it is part of experience. First we ar sori 4 wat happen. Like I said, it is part of life. U no d situation of our country- no jobs- dats y people lik us cant speak wit u but I can make calls wit ur line. We dint hot u much bt we arsori al d same. Extend our apology to ur dad and pray 4 our sins bt pls find a place in ur heart to 4 give us and remember ur boys. Thanks”.
