Ishaya Kukah, brother of Matthew Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of the Sokoto Diocese, has recounted his ordeal in the hands of bandits who held him and 59 others captive.
The rescued victims were reunited with their families in a handover ceremony carried out by Nuhu Ribadu, the national security adviser (NSA), and Badaru Abubakar, the minister of defense in Abuja.
Kukah said he has given up hopes of surviving before his rescue with others by the troops of 1 Division of the Nigerian Army in Kaduna.
“Frankly speaking, I had already given up. I didn’t think I would come out alive because of how they were treating us in the bush,” he said.
“We suffered too much. They used to chain us in two’s. If you wanted to defecate or urinate, you had to move together.”
He added that the captors tortured their victims to convince their families to pay ransom.
“If they noticed you were reluctant, they would beat or even kill you,” he added.
“If not for the federal government, we would still be in the bush. Thank you for what you have done. God bless you.”
Adesanya Micheal, a deputy director at the National Assembly Commission who was abducted from his residence in Kubwa, Abuja, said tackling banditry did not need a violent approach.
He said the bandits were mostly aged between 17 and 21 and were stark illiterates.
“I was chained for 32 days. Most of them can’t even count up to a million. They don’t know what they are doing,” he said.
“Instead of killing them, the government should arrest, educate and rehabilitate them. Some of them want to learn trades. They can still be useful.”
He also recounted how his wife was killed in his presence.
“When they kill someone in front of you, you will give them anything they want. They killed my wife before me. At that moment, if they had asked for my head, I would have given it.”
