A former Speaker of Ondo State House of Assembly, Hon. Victor Adekanye Olabimtan, who was kidnapped and released last week, has narrated his ordeal at the hands of his abductors.
Olabimtan who was kidnapped on his way from Akure to Abuja by fake solders that flagged his vehicle down at a military checkpoint in Kwali, in Abuja said he was deprived of food and made to trek several kilometres barefooted .
The All Progressives Congress (APC)governorship aspirant spoke to journalists at his Alagbaka house in Akure, the state capital after he was received by his supporters and well wishers.
Narrating his ordeal, Olabimtan said the armed hoodlums threatened to kill him if his people failed to cooperate with them and paid the ransom requested.
According to him, “It was exactly 6:35pm, we got to a spot and I was hearing gunshots and the gunshots were so much and I asked my driver what was happening
“When I saw those who were shooting, they were in camouflage uniform of the army and the police. I thought it was the police and the army that were exchanging gunfire.
“It was later we discovered that they could be armed robbers; when we learned that they were armed robbers, we had to stay where we are
“They had captured so many vehicles; they had blocked the road in front and we had to stay and they started searching every vehicle.
“When they got to my vehicle, they asked for what I have and I gave them what was on me, very little money, not much money – I gave it to them, they left. They said we should lie down and I lay down,” Olabimtan narrated.
According to him, the hoodlums came back and demanded to know the owner of his car, and then took him into the bush.
“That is when they said ‘stand up’. They just held me by the waist and started dragging me into the bush and when I wanted to resist, they gave me a dirty slap; in fact my eyes turned blue and I had to obey them and follow them.
“At that initial level, they dragged me into the bush, and they said I should stand up and be walking , I should be following them, they held me by the waist and I was following them.
“A lot of things were coming into my mind, I said could they be ritualist, afterall they have taken money, why are they doing what they were doing
“And we were into the bush. We have walked for about 30 minutes. They asked me to stop where I was and three others people were brought to the same spot and one of my captors said I should stand up and walk into the bush. I feared if I stood up and walked into the bush, he would shoot me in the back; that is death
“I refused , I said no, I said I am going to stand up here ; he said walk into the bush, I said No. He had this cutlass in his hand; he used the flat side of the cutlass to beat me at the back; I refused to move. One of them came and said ‘leave him, leave him, don’t bother, leave him’.
“They said I should sit down and I sat down, and after about 30 minutes, we started the journey into the bush. We left where we were kept by 8pm and continued to walk intoe the bush
“I was walking barefooted because my shoe, everything had been removed. So, I was following them, some were in the front leading us, others were at the back following us, and by 11:30, we arrived at a spot
“And they said we should all lie face down and we all lay face down and what I discovered was that – I was trying to watch to see what they were doing – I discovered that the money they were sharing the money the got from the raid on the road.
“After sharing the money, they now said, this is where we are sleeping and we were there till the following morning.
“And by exactly 4am they said we should be on the move and we started another journey from 4am till 11:30am that same day.”
The former speaker narrated further “It was that day that they first talked to us, one of them came to me and asked, ‘How much do you have?’ I said I didn’t have money. He asked again,”How much is in your bank account. I said there is no money in my bank account that if you want to know, my phone is with you, bring my phone I can check my account there and you will see my balance there.
“He said okay, “Who do you know that can give you money to bail you out? He said my ransom was N20milliom; another person, they said his own was N10million; another person, they said his own was N5million.
“Then I asked , How can my own be N20million, and they said I was the big man in the group.
According to the politician, the kidnappers kept their victims in a deep pit and moved mostly at night. “The third day, they moved us in the night around 7pm; we trekked from 7pm till around 1am inside the bush before we now got to a mountain and from there you would see the whole of Kwali, and they said that was where we were going to stay till we were bailed.
“And by 4pm on Wednesday, came the cheering news from them: that your ransom has been paid.”
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