For four days last week, Jamiu Bankole, a soft-spoken and unassuming electrical engineer was caught between the devil and deep blue sea.
In the early hour of Wednesday, August 28, he left his home in Akinbo for a nearby Mosque to observe the early morning Fajr prayer and after the congregational prayer, he observed the adkar and decided to return home.
On his way back home, as he narrated to NewMailNG in an interview, he was accosted by a man who asked him for a particular address to which he claimed not to know. However, as the conversation was going on, the same man who was asking him question quietly pulled out a pistol and ordered him to enter a small black bus parked by the roadside.
That was the last he knew as obviously, the kidnappers made him unconscious.
Here are the excerpts of the mind-bogging encounter intermittently laced with sobs as he recalled the gory incidence that happened right in his presence.
Tell us the details of what happened to you?
Thank you very much, I left my house at about 5.40 am on that fateful day to a nearby mosque for the early morning prayer. After the congregational prayer, I stayed back a bit to do adkar that normally followed the fajr prayer and upon conclusion, I stepped out heading back home when suddenly, a dark-complexioned man accosted me asking for a particular address within the vicinity which am not familiar with.
As the discussion was going on, we got to a point where a small black bus was parked and pronto, he pulled out a pistol and asked me to enter into the waiting bus. Inside the bus were two other men all dressed in black and red attire. That was the last I can recollect.
At that point, was there no passerby that can come to your rescue?
Like I said earlier, the environment was lonely, no one was passing by and as such, nobody could come to my aid. Besides, the security guards manning the area had closed for the day since they were engaged to work from 9:00pm to 5:00am in the morning.
So, at what point did you regained consciousness?
I didn’t regain my consciousness until about Thursday at about 4:00am when we got inside a very large, well-lighted building with very high wall surrounding it. It was at that point that I noticed that the three guys that kidnapped me had actually transferred me into a Sienna bus. At that point, there were three of us. Myself and another person and a woman.
When we entered into the compound, they asked us to undress, leaving only our undies, including the lady in our midst.
Like the three men that had kidnapped me at Akinbo, a suburb of of Akute in Ifo Local government area of Ogun State, those that we were eventually transferred were not speaking. They only use hands/fingers as well as eye to communicate with each other. I could’t decipher which tribe they were. I can’t say if they were Hausa, Yoruba or Ibo.
Like those that initially kidnapped you, can you recognize anyone among them in the event that they were caught and paraded by security agents?
Obviously No. I can’t recognize any of them. Besides, I was so scared that the image of any of them did not register in my memory.
So, what happened thereafter?
Few hours after we were asked to pull off all our cloths, a man, possibly the head ritualist among them came with a calabash with some fetish substances inside it and was calling us one by one by name.
By name, how did they know your names?
That was another thing that shocked me. I couldn’t recall when I told them my name. Maybe it was at the point when they diabolically made us unconscious.
Anyway, like I was saying, the man with the calabash was calling us one by one. The first person that was called, he was asked to place his head under the calabash and was reciting an inaudible incantation. The juju man was flinging the calabash left and right. They already told us that anyone of us whose head stayed gummed to the calabash would be killed.
At that point, having fully regained my consciousness, I became very frightened. At that point, I actually felt that the end had come for me.
As the herbalist was flinging the calabash on the first victim, pronto, it got stucked on his head and he was moved aside.
The next victim was a woman, she went through the same process and same thing happened to her. That actually made me almost gave up. In fact, the worst experience of my life happened when I watched before my very eye when one of the victims was slaughtered and his body parts ware butchered and cut into pieces.
At that point, I felt the real end has come. I had never seen where a human being was been killed like that before, no to talk about being dismembered.
However, because of my strong belief in Allah, I kept on reciting my adkhar. So when it was my time and I was called to place my head under the calabash and I did and the herbalist was performing the same exercise, I was almost dead. I can’t recollect how many time that was performed on me but Alhamdullilah, Allah saved me. The fetish calabash didn’t stuck to my head.
You mean you really saw a fellow being slaughtered and body parts butchered?
(He burst into tears and was wailing profusely) Yes, yes, yes. I never saw such before. It was like when cows are slaughtered and parts were shared. That was the closest to it. The scene was un-describable, very gory and frightening.
So, after the horrendous and animalistic ritual was completed, they moved out and left me and one person, obviously kept behind to keep vigil on me.
At about4:00am on Friday, I could hear the sound of vehicles, shattering of bottles and voices of people. I actually thought that we were actually very closed to a town not knowing that the sound of vehicles and bottles I was hearing were those of supposed customers who had come to buy the various body parts that had be slaughtered.
As all these were going on, I was further frightened but I kept on reciting some verses of Quaran and Adkhar so much that I didn’t know my voice was going out a bit loud. It was at that point that the guy who was actually left behind to keep vigil on me, who had all along been looking at me suddenly put one of his fingers on his mouth signifying that I should stop talking aloud.
Then, few minutes later, he went into the room where our cloths were kept and brought my Jalamiah and sanders to show me if they were mine to which I nodded affirmatively. He then gave them to me and asked me to put them on.
After that, something miraculous happened. He beckoned on me to quietly followed he and as we secretly stepped out of the building, he helped scaled the high high fence and pushed me out of the premises.
Really?
That was what happened. Immediately I landed on the other side, in the tick of the forest, I started running as fast as my legs and heart can carry me. For about two hours, I was running inside the forest until I got to farm where I met a man working on his farm. When I got to him, tattered and completely worn out, he gave me some water to wash my face and bruised body. It was at that point that he told me I was inside a forest somewhere close to Ore, a town in Ondo.
He told me he can ask his friend who was with a motorbike to take me to Ore town from where I can find my way back to Lagos.
When we got to Ore park, I was pacing up and down, no money to board a vehicle coming down Lagos. Less I forgot, the guy who rescued me from the place had given me my telephone handset but unknown to me, the SIM card in it had been removed.
I was pacing up and down until at a point when a military man who obviously must have been noticing me worked up to me to inquire about what happened to which I poured out my mind to. He then asked if I have money to transport myself back to Lagos, since, like he said, he was actually on his way to Maiduguri, Borno State.
I told that I had no money and he asked if I can recollect any member of my family or friend that can be called to alert them where I was. At that point, I remember my father’s number and he called him on his phone. Put it in speaker and I heard him asking if the man he was speaking with was the father of Jamiu to which my father answered affirmatively before he told him that I was at Ore.
Since, I didn’t have money for transport, my father asked us to find out the transport fare and after we got the rate, my father sent the money into the soldier’s account from where he collected and gave me.
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Seriously?
Yes, seriously. After the soldier departed and I have boarded the bus coming to Lagos, I also asked the driver to allow me use his phone to call my father to alert him so that they would join me at Berger garage from where I would be taken home. At least, I used the driver’s phone to call for about three time before I alerted at the final bus stop.
What happened when you saw your dad and others that came to receive you?
Sincerely, it was a mixed feeling. Firstly, I couldn’t believe that I could survive such a nasty experience alive
Now looking back, what advice can you give about all these giving your personal experience?
Honestly, I think everybody need to remain steadfast, devoted and totally committed to serving God. It was God that saw me through. I could have long gone and probably nobody would have been able to trace me.
Good morning distinguished friends and colleagues, it will be appreciated if the interview below is considered publishable in your respective medium. God used His power to use people that finally saw me out of ‘Hell”.
I thank everybody that stood by my family. I thank everybody within and outside the community. I especially thank the Muslim umah that prayed for me and Allah used them to get me out.
It was an experience worth sharing but too frightening to experience.
