Jhalil Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, son of First Republic Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, yesterday relived how he escaped from the kidnappers’ den on Saturday. He was abducted in Abuja on Friday.

He painted a stranger- than-fiction picture of how he walked into freedom in the dead of the night from the Mpape Hills in the Federal Capital Territory .

Although he is the National Chairman of Goodluck NAKOWA (Goodluck to all), a group urging President Goodluck Jonathan to contest the 2011 general election, Jhalil ruled out political motives in his abduction.

He rather described abduction as "a problem to be solved". Describing his experience as a "terrible but rewarding in some sense", Jhalil said: "My legs were completely worn-out due to long trekking. But when I got home Saturday night, I was overwhelmed by the kind of people I saw in my house."

Jhalil recalled that he was seized by four armed men in his office in Jabi, a suburb of Abuja around 5 pm on Friday.

His words: "I was just sitting in my office because somebody was supposed to see me around 4 pm . There were four other people with me in the office.

"I was seeing somebody off when the armed guys came in. They robbed everybody in my office. They took my wrist watch, took my wallet. They sent all those people to my wife’s shop after robbing them. They then told me that they came for me.

"They took me to their car where one of them holding a weapon was waiting. I asked where they were taking me to but instead of answering my question, they handed me a pair of dark goggles to wear. Once we were out, I couldn’t figure out where were going or where we were heading.

"As we continued, I sensed that we were ascending a hill because they accelerated the car. Once we were up the hill, they asked me to remove the goggles. We trekked through a river, after which they asked me to sit on a stone and made a fire for themselves. They took turn to smoke Indian hemp and continued to smoke heavily.

"They called my wife and asked me to speak with her. They then demanded N100 million ransom. But I told them I don’t have such money. They gave me an ultimatum to make the money available or I would die. I told them if it was time for me to go, so be it.

"They continued to smoke hemp and made contact with my wife again. I think my wife promised to fulfil their demand.

"But I discovered that they were careless with their weapons. Apart from smoking, they drank a lot of water. They left me with one of them. At a time the one they left to watch over me walked a bit away from me.

"When the time came, I went into the bush but when the person left to watch over me discovered that I was no longer there, he started combing and searching the bush. I noticed his movement and began to walk in the opposite direction. I was walking in the opposite direction to the position where I heard motorcycle sound. I trekked until I got to a house which had a generator.

"I went into the house and explained to the man what happened to me. And I requested for a phone to call my wife. But the service was poor but I continued until I got her. The man had a motorcycle and he took me on the motorbike. The road was rough and we tumbled a number of times. We got to a point where my wife directed me. And we stumbled on a police team. They grabbed me and put me in a waiting van."

Told that his story appeared to have contradicted that of the police that said he was rescued at gunpoint, Balewa said: "I would not know if there was a gun battle because two of the kidnappers left to get money from my wife and I did not know what happened between them and the police because the police set a trap for them."

Asked what was going through his mind while he was with the kidnappers, he said: "I was thinking of escaping but also very careful because they were more in number and had shot guns. I had to consider all these because if I was shot many times I would have lost a lot of blood before help would come. All the same, I was thinking of escaping."

"I also noticed that three of the kidnappers were basically speaking the same language. Only one appeared to come from a different stock. I noticed that they were always coming and going. But I set my mind on how to escape and when the time came, I made good use of the opportunity especially when they left me with one of them who was very careless with his weapon."

"I want to appreciate the President, the police and Nigerians in general for their efforts and solidarity with me. I want to say that I was not shaken by the event. I saw it as a problem that should be solved".



http://www.thenationonlineng.net/web3/news/11501.html

This is really interesting.