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Hijacked in Abuja
By Uche Nworah
Mike woke up that particular Saturday
morning feeling like he was carrying the weight of his
country’s (Nigeria) problems on his shoulders. He had
only five days to his planned book presentation, the
invitation cards were yet to go out and other logistical
arrangements hadn’t yet been completed. He had arrived
Abuja from Lagos the previous night with the last Virgin
Nigeria flight and planned to use the weekend to
conclude some of the arrangements.
Exhausted and his body needing more
sleep, Mike managed to drag himself up from the bed and
made his way to the bathroom. The mirror confirmed to
him what he had been saying to himself all along; he was
gradually turning into a wreck. His eyes looked worn and
tired and his face didn’t have the boyish spark anymore.
Mike knew that he needed to slow down; he hadn’t had any
proper holidays in a long while. Although his teaching
job in the United Kingdom where he lives allows him
regular holiday breaks when the students are away, he
never ever gets round to actually relaxing and enjoying
such breaks. Like some other Africans, Mike considers
himself very much still as a team member of the rat
race, work, work, work, hustle, and hustle. He often
wonders if he would ever get out of the race.
A little later, Mike’s phone rang; it
was Nze Sunny Ogbu, his friend of several years on the
line. He had picked Mike up from the airport the
previous night.
“Nna, how we go waka today?”
Sunny asked
“Ehm, Ehm”. Mike stuttered. He didn’t
know where to start, his brain refused to function that
particular minute.
“Sunny, please let me call you back in
a few minutes when I get out of the bathroom”.
Shortly after, Mike’s host in Abuja,
Okechi Precious Osuala, the General Manager of Chelsea
Hotel Abuja tapped on the door. He was about leaving for
work and was just checking up on Mike.
Mike thanked God for sending friends
like Sunny and Okechi his way. They have been friends
since their university days at Uyo. On graduation Sunny
went to live abroad but has since relocated back to
Abuja -Nigeria. Okechi choose to ride the storm in
Nigeria and has now made good. Ever since, both have
been trying to convince Mike to consider relocating back
to Nigeria but Mike was still undecided.
Later in the day, Sunny picked Mike up
in his 2005 model Toyota Camry; he had recently bought
the car as a surprise present for his wife, Helen, who
would be arriving from the UK the next day. Sunny
planned to surprise her at the Nnamdi Azikiwe
International Airport, Abuja when she arrives. He had
already arranged for a decorator to wrap the car in
ribbons at the airport. Sunny hasn’t seen his wife for
months and was quite excited at being reunited with her
and their daughter Chiazokam.
As Sunny and Mike toured Abuja that
Saturday giving out the invites and tying up all other
logistics arrangement, little did they know that the
rest of the night would turn into a nightmare for them
and shake the very foundations of their faith.
By the time they were done, it was
already past 6 pm but they still had one more call to
make. Next, they visited the proposed chairman of the
book presentation, Chief George Moghalu at his home.
They arrived to meet Retired General Lawrence Onoja in
his company and spent the next two hours discussing
Nigerian affairs and Mike’s proposed book presentation.
A little after 8 pm, Sunny and Mike
left Chief Moghalu’s residence, they wanted to drop off
Mohammed Adams, Mike’s friend who works at the federal
ministry of information and who has been with them all
day helping out with the planning.
Sunny drove into the wide open
unsecured FCDA Quarters in Wuse 11 where Mohammed lives
at about 8.30 pm. As they drove through the untarred
small stretch of road towards Mohammed’s flat, they
failed to notice the white Golf car trailing behind
them. The night was still busy, people were going about
their business and Abuja was supposed to be a safe town
compared to the more volatile Lagos and Port Harcourt
towns.
Finally Sunny stopped the car in front
of Mohammed’s flat; in that split second all hell broke
loose. Five heavily armed men surrounded the vehicle,
with their guns pointed at Sunny, Mike and Mohammed,
they barked out orders simultaneously.
“Put your hands up and come down from
the vehicle immediately”
“Don’t shout; don’t try anything funny
or you will be dead men”
Quietly Sunny, Mike and Mohammed obeyed
the gunmen’s orders. The trio have since imbibed the
popular Nigerian saying—never argue with the man with
the gun.
Mike and Mohammed were commandeered to
the back seat eventually, one of the gun men took
possession of the vehicle and positioned himself in the
driving seat; another dispossessed Sunny of his mobile
phones and cash. Sunny had an additional 60,000 Naira in
the glove compartment, money he had taken from his
office earlier in the day for household use that
weekend. Two other gunmen wedged Mike and Mohammed in at
the back seat with their guns pointed to their sides.
“Keep your heads down and don’t say a
word”, the gunman to Mike’s right shouted in
unadulterated English. Mike doubted the theory which
says that robbers were uneducated social miscreants; the
gunmen who now held them hostage were wide off that
description. In the day, the gunmen could pass for
corporate executives, though Mike could not really see
their faces, but their voices betrayed their
youthfulness.
Mike wondered who the real victims of
the incident were; himself, Sunny and Mohammed or the
gunmen and Nigeria’s other Generation Yahoo, whose
concept of enterprise have now been reconditioned by the
social realities around them: unemployment, fading
dreams, government apathy to problems facing the youth
and institutional corruption. Mike decided to derail his
thoughts to concentrate on the matter at hand. If he
lived, he would continue with the philosophising another
day.
Suddenly, the gun man who now had
control of the vehicle manoeuvred the car and faced the
exit; his driving dexterity showed that he must have
been through tactical driving skills at the Lawrence
Anini and Monday Osunbor Driving Academy. He bellowed to
the other gun man to get in quickly and they sped off
leaving a hale of dust behind them, while the get-away
car followed behind. The operation had lasted less than
60 seconds just like Nicolas Cage’s Gone in Sixty
Seconds.
Benumbed by shock and surprise, Sunny
managed to raise alarm inside the estate but the
residents preferred to mind their own business; they
locked their doors even more securely. Sunny was worried
at the fate of Mike and Mohammed whom the gun men had
abducted. He feared for their lives, especially for Mike
whom he and Okechi Precious Osuala had convinced to
bring his book presentation to Abuja. He managed to
contact a few friends in Abuja and they raised a search
party immediately.
As the gun men sped through the streets
of Abuja, Mike tried to engage them in a discussion; he
had noticed that three of the robbers were of the Igbo
tribe as they spoke Igbo amongst themselves though
tinged in coded slang. Mike tried to play the ethnic
sentiment card and pleaded with the gun men in Igbo
language to let them go. He told them that he had a
little over two thousand pounds in his laptop bag which
was inside the vehicle and some thousands of naira. He
also told them that he had his Compaq laptop, Fuji
digital camera, Olympus digital voice recorder inside
the bag as well which they could sell for cash. Mike
falsely assumed that he was making progress. He was
getting round to negotiating with his captors on how to
retrieve some of the files in his laptop and memory
stick including his 3 years PhD research work and book
manuscripts. Mike didn’t finish making his life-saving
speech when he felt a heavy blow to his head. The gun
man seating in the front passenger’s seat had cracked
open his head with the butt of his gun.
“We told you to shut up. I’m from
Kaduna. I will shoot you now. I don’t care about you”,
he retorted.
Mike felt a momentary blinding flash.
In his bended seating position he was able to feel his
head; his sticky fingers told him that blood was gushing
out. In an instant his whole face was drenched in his
blood, likewise his clothes. Suddenly he felt a sharp
jab to his neck; it was the gun man to his right this
time.
“This man, stop staining me with your
blood”, he told Mike in a very harsh tone. Mike wanted
to tell him that he couldn’t help it but he dared not
utter a word anymore. Mike searched his mind for options
but all he could think of was to ask God to forgive his
sins and to receive his soul. Mike was certain that they
were going to be executed.
As the gun men drove on, Mike noticed
that their tone of voice became harsher; they seemed to
be irked by something. Mike heard them mention the words
police checkpoints severally; perhaps they were planning
their manoeuvre in case they were confronted by the
police. Mike prayed that they don’t run into any police
checkpoints; he knew quite well that the robbers will
not stop for the police and that this may lead to a
police chase or exchange of gun fire. Should that occur,
he didn’t want to imagine the outcome. Not only could
they be caught in the crossfire but the police may even
round him and Mohammed up alongside the robbers and
treat them as part of the gang.
After about 45 minutes of driving, Mike
felt the car slow down. He noticed that the car had
veered off the road and was now driving through a rough
terrain. Suddenly the car stopped and the gun men
commanded Mike and Mohammed to come down. As they
alighted from the car, Mike staggered and managed to
steady himself by the car. He was beginning to feel
faint from the loss of blood; his head was almost
exploding and pain racked his whole body.
The entire forest where they found
themselves was enveloped in darkness, Mike continued to
pray silently. He wasn’t even praying for God to deliver
them, rather he was asking God to accept their souls for
he considered himself and Mohammed as dead men walking.
When one of the robbers remarked in
menacing tone that, “Now the main business begins”, Mike
thought that they were now going to be prepared and
offered as ritual sacrifices. Tales of such practices
are constantly reported in the Nigerian media especially
in the Abuja area where hordes of corpses have been
discovered recently with the vital organs taken out for
ritual purposes.
Mike’s fear was confirmed when he and
Mohammed were ordered to take off their clothes, they
obeyed and stripped themselves off. They were led into a
small clearing inside the forest with guns pointed at
them. The shame of nakedness disappeared into the dark
Saturday night.
They were ordered to lie face down and
the gun men securely tied their hands to their backs,
they also bound their feet and walked around them still
speaking in coded slang. One of the gun men told the
others, “Let’s finish them off now”.
As Mike waited for the bullet or the
machete cut, he thought about his wife, his family and
his friends. He wondered why his Maker had decided that
his star would dim so early and so shamefully. Mike
continued to wait and prayed that the gunmen should
spare him the agony of waiting and do what they had to
do. He wasn’t concerned anymore with the various insects
feasting on his exposed body; he stilled his mind and
continued to wait.
Suddenly there was quiet, Mike heard a
car ignition turn on, followed by a second. The sounds
were the sweetest melody he had ever heard in his life.
Something told him that his abductors were about
leaving. Mike heard the cars rev and drive off, but he
still wasn’t sure if they left any guard behind. Mike
felt that heaven had provided him and Mohammed with a
window of opportunity. He lay still for a while and
listened for human noise, but the million sounds of the
forest inhabitants made any discernment impossible.
Mike decided to brave it; he exerted
every strength left in him as he tried to wriggle out of
his handcuffs. After several attempts and bruises, he
managed to secure his hands free. He then untied his
feet and helped Mohammed out of his own shackles.
Naked, bruised, shaken and dying, Mike
and Mohamed ran out of the forest to the motorway in
search of help. None came. Mike thought he knew why,
they were naked, and so he decided to go back to the
spot where they had escaped from. Mohammed cautioned
against it but Mike knew that the bigger risk was in
standing naked on the motorway. He scurried for their
clothes and found them strewn all over, partly torn and
soaked in blood. They put them on but still no car would
stop for two bruised and dirty looking men standing by
the motorway outside Abuja city gate that late on a
Saturday evening.
Help comes from unexpected places. Eche,
one of the search party hastily raised by Sunny suddenly
appeared. His remit was to cover the airport axis and to
inform duty police road patrols of the incident. Eche
picked Mohammed and Mike up, as Mike settled into Eche’s
Toyota Starlet car, he passed out.
This is a true story. All the names in
the story are real except Mike. Mike went on to have his
book (The Long Harmattan Season) presentation as planned. The Nigerian
Police have still not recovered Sunny’s Toyota Camry car
and Mike’s valuables. The Mike in the story is me, the
author. A deep appreciation to friends, family and
associates who have strengthened me through words of
encouragement, prayers and material gifts. I am
overwhelmed. My friends at nigeriavillagesquare.com, you
guys are awesome.
info@uchenworah.com
August 2007
posted 2 August 2007 |
