Victims recount how kidnappers flogged them for 12 days

They were excited after receiving a call from a team in Rivers state for a contract they were to be awarded 

They left Delta state on the instruction of their boss to get the contract, but ended up in the hands of their abductors Three kidnap victims, Mr Okelezo Wilfred, who is the general manager of Jofad Global Services, a construction firm in Warri, Delta state, as well as his colleagues, Roland Ukojevo and Israel Isawoele, took out time to recount their experiences in the hands of their abductors recently. 

According to The Punch, the victims said they were daily given 10 strokes of the cane for the 12 days they spent in the hands of their abductors. After every beating, they were fed with plantain and beans.

Recalling how the incident happened, Wilfred said said they became victims because of their desperation for a contract. Wilfred, who is now treating injuries sustained in the buttocks as a result of the daily flogging, further said the kidnappers later demanded for N150 million as ransom from their boss. 

He said: “I felt an excruciating pain when they (kidnappers) flogged me. Every day, they flogged us 10 times. They did not flog Mr. Roland because of his age. Now, I have wounds in my buttocks. 

“We got a little relief when they asked Mr. Ukojevo to do the flogging because his (strokes of cane) was not as painful as when the kidnappers flogged us by themselves.” In his own narration, Ukojevo, with swollen legs, said one of the kidnappers, claiming to be in charge of the contract to them, took the victims somewhere in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni local government area of Rivers state. 

“Somebody told us there was a job and that we should come and look at it. We came in from Delta to Ahoada and when we met the man, he said he would take us to his boss somewhere in Ahoada. “He later took us to somewhere in Omoku, Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area, where we were hijacked. “We were taken to three different locations in the bush. They took us to a hut where we were blindfolded. We were there for six hours. 

“They later took us away from that hut to another place where we spent another six hours and later, they took us across a river and we trekked for about two hours,” he said. 

They were rescued by men of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and the victims said they had learnt their lessons. 

“They are contractors from Warri, in Delta state. Someone called them from Rivers state that they had a contract for them in Rivers and so, the manager, site engineer and two others were mandated by their company to come down to Rivers state to see and negotiate how the job would be done. “Unfortunately, they did not know that it was a set-up by the kidnappers. 

There was no contract; it was just a scam to get them out of Delta state and get them kidnapped,” the NSCDC confirmed. 

Kidnapping for ransom has become a major crime in many parts of Nigeria. In Lagos state , the House of Assembly is preparing a bill that would ensure stricter punishments for kidnappers.