LAGOS– Akerele Olalekan Daniel, a businessman in the South East region of Nigeria, has narrated how his kidnap, activities of the Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB) has forced him out business, thereby causing his family hardship.
Narrating his ordeal with The News Ville reporter from his hideout, Daniel said he also had a lot of close shave with death in the hands of the dreaded Boko Haram, while in the Northern part of the country.
He noted that the traumatic experience in the north forced him to relocate to the East part to set up his personal business before he was eventually kidnapped.
Having paid ramson, a seemingly shaking Daniel said he still receives death threats from unknown sources which prompted him to go into hiding.
“In 2009, while I was working with Royal Tarskish Global Multi Services Limited, a specialized site acquisition, site maintenance and Base Transmission System building telecoms, My Company consults for MTN, Etisalaat and Airtel, My Job as a site Manager is to locate the site, and perform maintenance operations. Most of the site were leased from the owners.
*We cover the North, namely Sokoto Kaduna, Maiduguri, Adamawa Niger, Katsina and also the East and southern part of Nigeria. We discovered that most of the sites would be down due to Boko Haram and terrorist attacks in the northern part of Nigeria, Adamawa, Yola and Niger, this affected our job.
“In 2010, while at the park in Kano, we were about to deploy to a site, while arranging our equipment we saw people running helter-skelter because of a terrorist attack, and bomb blast at the park, a lot of lives were lost and we scampered back to our hotel it was a terrible experience in the north because of the Boko Haram terrorist. They terrorize both indigenes and non indigenes.
“Most of the Boko-haram people seek to get more followers by terrorizing people to accept them. After then our companies head office moved us to a less volatile area in the North central that is Kaduna and Minna and also the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
“No sooner than later the terrorist moved to the north central and even invaded Abuja in 2012, as a result of the terrorist’s activities I lost my job.
“A friend now introduced me to Haulage and transport business I then moved to Imo State and was carrying on my business there form the state capital in Owerri to Anambra and Asaba. I transport and move goods around this areas. I have a small office at Owerri very close to Douglas Roundabout. And I had two staff working for and with me.
The business was Successful and everything was going on as planned and I acquired two trucks for my day to day business.
“In 2018 my predicament started when the easterners begin to extort me illegally claiming I am not a son of the soil. The will come and claim they were igbo indigenous traders and make spurious demand that I pay them, This is despite the fact that I pay my levies to the government both local and state. They also demand road transport levies and all sorts of illegal levies.
“They keep coming and create havoc, they damage things in the office, when I reported to the police, and policemen attempted to settle the issue, the next day I discovered that the boys had come overnight and broken all my mirrors. The police requested I make friend with them and specially told me that not being from their state they can cause me serious havoc, and harm.
“I tried to make peace with them and whenever they come I will have to pay them money and the always come in two or three months intervals. This was in 2017 to 2018. They kept frustrating my business, anytime I return to Lagos and explain to my friend who is from the east with the intention of seeking his advice, he would advice m to take it easy as they exploit people who are not the same tribe with them.
“The final event that made me to have a trauma was in June 2019 when I was coming from Owerri to Lagos to stay with my family. I was kidnapped along the Lagos-Sagamu axis. An unknown vehicle double cross the vehicle I was in they started shooting, I thought it was an arm robbery so I removed my phone switched it off. They used the back of their gun to hit me. I fell down and what I noticed was tat they blindfolded me. After about 30 minutes I discovered they were kidnappers.
“They took me inside the forest and removed the blindfold, we started moving, we were about 6 in number. I could not even identify were I was either it was Lagos or Ogun or Benin. But I clearly got the language they were speaking was Igbo.
“After a long trek they tied me with other victims in the thick forest, that is were the genesis of the kidnapping started, they stood in front of us armed with different sort of sophisticated guns.
On that day my family could not reach me as I did not know where my phone and other belongings were. It was in the morning as the day broke that I fully saw the kidnappers, They asked us how to reach our family , they asked me to call my family, I called my wife, before speaking to my wife they asked her to send airtime of 5,000 naira.
“We started to negotiate with my family and demanded a ransom before they released me. Negotiations was on a daily basis with beatings and shooting, they went ahead and shot some people dead.
“In the evenings they aways moved us to another location. The negotiation continued and they decided on a 10million Naira ransom. They informed us that if we ever informed the police we will be killed. They tortured us everyday.
“They kept moving us from one location to the other until we paid N3million naira as ransom.
“They blindfolded me and put me at the back of a vehicle and pushed me back on the road. I borrowed a phone in a shop around the place and then called my family member to inform them were I was. My wife now sent me money through one good samaritan in the area. I used the money to come back to Lagos.
“When I got to Lagos I was traumatized and could not go back to Imo state to continue my business. On 24th July 2019 I went to the police station to make a report
“I started being afraid and having anxiety had chest pain and was afraid of being in the midst of crowd, I could not sleep and then had to go to the hospital on the 1st day of august, the doctors examined me and decided that I had agoraphobia.
” I had to see a psychiatrist, I could not sleep and had difficulty in breathing, and depression set in. I was placed on antidepressants while the therapist tried to calm me down.
“I was psychologically depressed and for over 5 months I lost my erection. I still receive videos that they know my location, with threat that they will kill me”, he said
The News Ville report that as at the time of filing this report, Daniel is still in hiding, saying that he may seek a way of the country to safe his life.
