John Adams, Minna
The Niger state Social Democratic Party governorship candidate in the 2019 election, Alhaji Mahmoud Sani, is yet to recover from the trauma and injuries he sustained in the hands of kidnappers, who abducted him and his driver three weeks ago.
On that fateful day, he got a firsthand experience of what he had been hearing on television and reading in the newspapers, when he fell into the hands of daredevil kidnappers along the ever busy, but notorious Kaduna-Abuja expressway.
Alhaji Mahmoud’s journey to the kidnappers’ den started from his house in Bida, Niger State when he set out for a business trip to Zamfara State, unknown to him that danger was lurking on the way.
He left Bida about 4:00pm with the hope of making a stopover in Kaduna, to continue his journey the next day.
However, because of the deplorable condition of the roads, the night fell on him at Dikko in Suleja where he made a brief stopover to observe the 8:00pm Muslim prayer.
After thanking God for his protection so far and committing the rest of the journey into God’s hands, Mahmoud and his driver hit the road again before the journey was terminated less than 40 kilometers to Kaduna.
His words: “It was exactly 9:15pm when we arrived at the scene, just about 50 meters from a police checkpoint and also about 50 meters to another police check point,” the terribly traumatized SDP chieftain said.
“They were four in number, all dressed in rough camouflage military uniform and heavily armed with AK47 rifles. They flagged us down with torchlight and I asked my driver to stop. Initially I thought they were military men but when I looked at the way they were dressed, looking very rough, I immediately concluded that they were kidnappers.
“They asked my driver to come down while another one opened my door and asked me to come down. There and then they started beating us, hitting us with their guns and pushing us towards the bush.
“One of them asked me if was carrying money in the boot of my car and I said no. He interjected that the driver told them that there was money in the car and said that I was lying.
“They marched us into the bush and after trekking for about three kilometers, we got to where they packed two motorcycles. They asked us to get on the motorcycles. Three of us sat on each motorcycle with my driver and in-between the four kidnappers.”
Mahmoud further told Sunday Sun that the journey of about nine kilometers into the thick bush that night took them about one hour due to the nature of the road.
“We got there around 11:00pm in the night. They initially took us to a rocky hill, but about 30 minutes later they moved us to where other kidnap victims earlier caught by them were being kept.”
The former SDP governorship candidate and his driver spent the night without food. Two of the other victims, who were exhausted had prepared for the night before the arrival of Mahmoud and his driver. Recalling the dehumanization condition of the kidnappers’ hideout, he said: “It was an open space; there was nothing like a roof on us, there was nothing like tree around there. We were given some small tapeline bags to cover our heads in case rain fell.”
For six days, they fed on rice hurriedly cooked with only oil, noodles and drank sachet water. They were fed like this three times a day while the abductors mounted pressure on them for payment of the ransom.
“Initially they asked me to bring N40 million because as a gubernatorial candidate I should have money. But I told them I only tested my popularity by contesting the election not that I have the money.
“They said I should have friends who can pay the ransom but I told them that there was no money. After four days I told them that my people have been able to raise N3.5million. It was at that point that they asked me to talk to their boss whom we only spoke with on phone and he said we should make it N5million.
“Eventually they collected N4million after much begging. And when my people brought the money to a place about 100 kilometers from where we were, it took my people about two hours waiting in the bush before they (other members) appeared and collected the money and they told our captors to let us go.”