Kidnappers collected fried rice, chicken before releasing Ekiti pupils – Teacher’s husband

The husband of a teacher from the Apostolic Faith Group of Schools in Emure Ekiti who was abducted alongside some pupils last week, has revealed that the abductors demanded food as part of the ransom for the release of victims.

Pastor Clement Adebisi made this known in an interview with The Punch while sharing sharing the family’s harrowing experience during the incident.

He said the gunmen demanded fried rice, chicken and drinks, which they were asked to buy in addition to the ransom money the victims families raised.

In his words; “When we started the journey to the forest from Emure Ekiti, we did not want anybody to know that we were going there; we took a bus and laid flat in it so that people would not see us because we observed that the kidnappers knew some of what was going on in town, and we didn’t know how.

We gave the instruction that nobody should make any calls. We passed through Eporo to Emure Ile (Ondo State), and from Emure Ile to Ikare junction. At Ikare junction, we went to buy all the things they asked us to buy – fried rice, chicken, drinks, etc as if we were going to pay a bride price. That was how we continued with the journey into the thick forest. At the end of the day, we give glory to God.”

Recounting how he felt when he learnt last Monay that his wife had been kidnapped, the cleric said he was devastated but his “belief was that the battle was the Lord’s”

Pastor Adebisi said; “As a human, I felt devastated, but I know that I have Christ, who made it easy to win the battle. With his power, we can face any problem; I believed that the incident would come and it would go away. My belief was that the battle was the Lord’s and not mine.

That was what came to my mind that Monday evening. Before that time, I had been calling my wife since around 3pm to inform her that I was at our (The Apostolic Church) headquarters at Orun Ekiti, so that she would wait for me. Whenever I was at Orun like that, I would call her to wait so that I could take her home because their bus was always jam-packed. I called several times but the network was not okay.

I was with my boss at Emure Ekiti around 6pm when the call came through that there was a robbery attack on the school bus that my wife had not returned home and that the children said my wife had been taken away. Immediately I went to inform my boss of the development. The next thing was to look for a solution. So, I went to the church in Eporo to pray. I told God that since I was called by Him, enemies should not have a lasting and final laugh over me. The Bible said that there would be struggles and fights against us, but they cannot conquer us. Calls were coming in from different people about the situation.

Around 7pm on Tuesday, a strange number called and I picked it up, and it was my wife; she said, ‘Daddy, kidnappers have abducted me’. I asked to speak with the kidnappers. The kidnappers told me they wanted N10m. I told them I didn’t have N10m. I told them that I would gather whatever I could find. About five minutes later, they called back and said I should bring the N10m unfailingly the following day (Wednesday).

As I was saying there was no way I could see it, I could hear the sound of how they were hitting my wife. It was the beatings that affected her. They beat her too much. They called about eight times that day. Somebody said I should tell the kidnappers that I had gathered N500,000. So, when I relayed the message to them, one of them said, ‘If dem born you well, come here with N1m, I will kill you, kill your wife’. That was how we, parents and relatives gathered and came to town. We continued to try until we gathered the little amount we could raise.”