- Says they fed us raw cassava, made us trek for 15 hours
- Freedom account negates police ‘rescue’ narrative
They rained bullets on our vehicle and another Sharon car that had five passengers. Clearly, they didn’t care if anyone got hit or we died.
“In fact, I learnt later that a woman in the other car was hit by a bullet. The bullets also hit our vehicle tyres and we were demobilised.
“They then ordered us to get down and lie flat on the ground. I initially thought they were policemen because most of them were wearing police uniforms. But on a second thought, it occurred to me that the police would not open fire on vehicles like that.
“I actually wasn’t sure of what was happening until they asked us to start moving into the forest at gunpoint.”
Above were the words of Johnson Abalaka (real name withheld for security reasons), one of the ‘rescued’ 20 medical students of the University of Maiduguri and University of Jos, who were kidnapped on Thursday August 15 and held captive for nine days.
Clearly, the experience was such a tough and traumatic one for the youngster that he shuddered and shivered from mere recollection and had to be persuaded and repeatedly guaranteed anonymity before he agreed to speak.
Besides, they had been advised by parents, relatives, even their university authorities and the police, to steer clear of journalists.
Recalling the grueling experience, Abalaka said he could not exactly identify where they were ambushed, but said they were on their way from the University of Jos to Enugu for the Federation of Catholic Medical and Dental Students (FECAMDS) annual convention holding in Enugu, and had only just left Mechanic Village Otukpo when it happened.
“When the bullets hit our tyres and we could no longer move, they came from nowhere and started barking at us to come down. Almost immediately, they also started flogging us and ordering us to lie down. It was totally unexpected.
“We were forced to trek far into the forest. If I can recollect correctly, I think we trekked for 15 hours from that moment. We trekked the whole night and they only granted us few minutes of rest if they realised we were too tired to continue.”
Abalaka, who could not recall which was more gruesome between the hunger and thirst they were subjected to and the harrowing trekking in the forest, added: “On one occasion, we were made to trek from 6pm to 5am the following day. We trekked such distance about three times.
“I understood they had to keep moving us because they didn’t want to stay in one place and risk being tracked and cornered by the police.”
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