Ritual Kidnapping

No matter how many times you hear or read some stories, you find it too too hard to believe them, ‘cos you just can’t fathom it. A friend’s cousin told me a story of how she was abducted from a bus around the Jibowu area of Lagos, sometime last year, on her way back from school (Yaba College of Technology) and how she survived being used for ritual.

They let her go because she was on her period. And like the story you’re about to read, she was also taken outside of Lagos to a forest in the western part of Nigeria. When she was released and dumped on a busy road, a Good Samaritan found a church ID card (St Dominics Catholic Church) on her and brought her back to Lagos.

I’m interviewing her for the next edition of our magazine, hoping her story will help others be a bit more conscious and more careful of the kind of bus they enter and how to ask for help when kidnapped.

In City People Magazine this week, I read a similar story. A story of how a Redeem Pastor, Pastor Oladeji, the Pastor in charge of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Amazing God Parsh, Alagbado, Lagos, was recently kidnapped by some ritualists, but miraculously survived to tell his own story. In this report, Pastor Oladeji recounts his tragic experience, how it all started, what he went through and how he was miraculously saved.
By Bola Akinboade.

“It all began in the week of my wedding. I had already told my fiancée that I wouldn’t be going out but later in the day, I got a call from my former church that they wanted to support me with a token amount of money for my wedding preparation.

So I went to Ketu Alapere to collect the money. On my way back home that night, I boarded a bus at Ketu bus stop going to Oshodi, but I noticed that the vehicle did not pass through Anthony. At that point, a woman who was also one of the passengers inquired from the driver where he was taking us to, only for a man in the vehicle to bring out a gun and asked everybody to co-operate. He ordered everybody to bow his or her head.

I then noticed that the vehicle made a u-turn at Jibowu to an unknown destination, from one jungle to another. And when it was around 3am, the bus stopped and we were blindfolded. They later took us to a waiting bus with 14 passengers and we embarked on another journey in a thick forest. We were all kept at this final destination which is also a thick forest.

They later searched all our pockets and collected phones, money and other items. After we stayed at that particular location for days, another bus came again and they marched us inside. Our eyes were covered again and we were taken to another destination which is also a thick forest. At that place we were all stripped naked and ordered to take a calabash each.

Later we were taken inside where we saw an old woman who later appeared to be their controller. Blood littered everywhere and there were so many people. Our captors paraded us before the woman with the aid of a gun. The woman later came out with a charm which she used to touch our heads and used another charm to beat us on the chest. Then we were told to say our last prayer as nobody who entered there had ever come out alive.

In front of us was a long pole with a big Calabash. The woman ordered us to pass under it one after the other. Once the Calabash rolls that’s the end of that person. Four hefty men came out and slaughtered one of us. A calabash was used to collect the human parts and another was used to collect blood. People were coming to buy all the human parts with huge amount of money.

There was a woman in our midst, when she passed under the calabash, the woman controller discovered she was pregnant and she ordered that the foetus in her womb be removed and put in a mortar.

Suddenly, a breeze hit me and I started speaking in tongues. They threatened me with a gun but for ten minutes, I spoke in tongues and there was this man in front of me who was saying amen to all my prayers.

The woman asked me who my herbalist was; I told her I didn’t have any that I am a pastor. She instructed the gun men to return me and we were both kept in a room. They later called somebody to pick us up and dump us in the nearest town. He dropped us at a village called Okuku in Osun State. He gave us N500 to board a bus going to Ile-Ife.

The bus took us to Obafemi University half naked with blood on our bodies. It was some of the market women in front of the University and some students that came to our rescue. They contributed money for us to comeback from Lagos.

And to the glory of God, out of the 14 passengers, only the two of us were saved miraculously."
That's his story.

Like I said, stories like this are so difficult to believe. When my friend's cousin told me her story, sincerely I had my doubts. I knew she was kidnapped 'cos she was in a psyche ward for many months after she was found again (she went missing for 16 days), but I found it hard to believe her tale of seeing people being be-headed, cut up into pieces and sold.

This is the third case of ritual kidnapping I've heard, and now I believe these things are really happening.
But why is this happening?
How can we stay safe?
Have you ever heard of this?
Have you had a similar experience?
You know anyone who has?
Why aren’t the police interviewing survivors, getting directions and raiding these places where humans are killed and their body parts sold just so some people can live in mansions and drive a Hummer?