Ishaya Kukah, brother of Matthew Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, has recounted his harrowing experience in the hands of bandits who had held him and others captive.
On Tuesday, Nuhu Ribadu, the national security adviser (NSA), and Badaru Abubakar, the minister of defence, handed over 60 rescued victims to their families in Abuja.
Kukah said he had given up hope of surviving before his rescue with others by the troops of 1 Division of the Nigerian Army in Kaduna.
“Frankly speaking, I had already given up. I didn’t think I would come out alive because of how they were treating us in the bush,” he said.
“We suffered too much. They used to chain us in twos. If you wanted to defecate or urinate, you had to move together.”
Kukah added that the victims were pressured into agreeing to pay ransom to their abductors due to the torture they endured.
He said, “if they noticed you were reluctant, they would beat or even kill you”.
“If not for the federal government, we would still be in the bush. Thank you for what you have done. God bless you,” he added.
Adesanya Michael, a deputy director at the National Assembly Commission who was abducted from his residence in Kubwa, Abuja, advocated for a non-combative approach to tackling banditry.
He said the bandits, mostly aged between 17 and 21, were stark illiterates and victims of circumstance.
“I was chained for 32 days. Most of them can’t even count up to a million. They don’t know what they’re doing,” Michael said.
“Instead of killing them, the government should arrest, educate, and rehabilitate them. Some of them want to learn trades. They can still be useful.”
Michael, who was kidnapped on January 26 and released on April 7, recounted how his wife was killed in his presence.
“When they kill someone in front of you, you will give them anything they want. They killed my wife before me. At that moment, if they had asked for my head, I would have given it,” he said.
