Nigerians are very strong. Many of our average daily experiences would require serious therapy sessions in the abroad. I've never spoken about this to anyone. Only my family members know this. I'll make this very brief.


A couple of years ago when the Lagos State government banned the use of Okadas and Keke Maruwas, a lot of motorists used the opportunity to cash in by using their personal cars to convey people to offset their fuel bills. More prevalent were the use of private Toyota Siennas as modes of public transport.
On this Sunday, I didn't go to church. At about 10 am, I decided to use the ATM around Allen for the day's cash and also to withdraw the school fees of my little cousin for the new term. Normally, a bank to bank transfer would have sufficed but you know some of these Lagos schools, they prefer actual bank tellers from cash deposits because some of the bills go to different accounts such as PTA and some extracurricular activities. I withdrew a total of 120k with the intention of giving my sister 95k to go pay the school fees the next morning. I withdrew at the GTBank at Allen and crossed the road to get Keke back home. Normally, during the week, the kekes were off the road but being a Sunday and the enforcement officers were enjoying their weekend, so most kekes used the opportunity to hustle. I used one to get to the bank earlier. Soon as I crossed the road, a Sienna pulled up and since they were being used everywhere I didn't suspect a thing. There was a woman by the driver and two guys occupying the immediate two seats behind the driver forcing me to retreat to the back of the bus. They used the woman to bait me. We hadn't reached Oshopey Plaza when one of the guys flashed me a gun and told me to lie down in the space between the both other them. They searched me and took the cash and ATM. (I hadn't taken my phone with me since my house was just a 3 minute Keke ride to the ATM.) Then they knocked me out. I woke up alone in a room and realised it was night already. I began sweating profusely. I checked out the window but I couldn't see anything outside. The window was very dusty from the outside. I'm telling myself "LagosG, you're f******. You're dead!" After a bit, drowning in anxiety, someone came in. He wasn't part of the crew I saw earlier. He said "you don wake abi? You dey sleep o! I think say you don die. If na North dem go don bury you." The time was almost 1am. I was out for more than 12 hours. They took me out to the Sienna again. The house was abandoned and without fence. There was no way for me to know where I was even as Lagos wakawaka boy wey I be. I was going through wild disorientation. These bastards drove me to 4 different ATMs and had me withdraw another 150k which is my withdrawal limit. They didn't ask me to transfer. They were smart. I tried hard to see if I could recognise the area around the banks. but I couldn't because I was laying on the ground in the bus while thy were driving around as they told me to when I was first abducted. After the last withdrawal, I had less than 3k left in my aza. They broke my ATM and kept driving for what seemed like forever. I just kept thinking the worst. What would my family be going through? Yoruba people say a dead child is better than a lost one. This would tear my family apart. I figured we must be on an expressway because the speed was much and they barely used the brakes. After what seemed like forever, the bus began to slow down. The woman was no longer with them and they spoke in a different variation of Yoruba so I didn't understand anything they had been saying the whole time which fuelled my justified paranoia. I saw the the door slide open while the bus was in motion. The guy by the door stood up over me, dragged me and flung me out. It was dawn around past 5am. I saw bush left and right. I was bleeding from my lips, elbows and knees from the fall. I flagged down cars but nobody stopped. I kept walking for about 10 minutes then I saw what looked like women carrying firewood. I ran to them and asked them where I was. My people, they answered that I was at Sagamu!!! They directed me to the police station and said that's how these abductors usually drop people off at that same point. Apparently, the women usually go into the bush to harvest wood used for herbs early in the morning and had witnessed such before.
I walked al the way to the police station with a bloodied shirt and dusty shorts with slippers. Soon as I got to the counter and narrated my ordeal, the said the DPO wasn't there yet and the next thing these people did was lock me up with criminals to wait for the DPO. The ordeal at the station is another story for another day. Long story short, around 9am, after narrating to the DPO too, they called my mother and she had to drive down to Shagamu to literally bail me.

I know I didn't have it as bad as some other people but the anxiety I experienced after was so much. Whenever I saw a Sienna, my heart would skip. I still don't trust people who drive it till today.
Share yours or the one of someone close to you

LagosG:
Nigerians are very strong. Many of our average daily experiences would require serious therapy sessions in the abroad. I've never spoken about this to anyone. Only my family members know this. I'll make this very brief.


A couple of years ago when the Lagos State government banned the use of Okadas and Keke Maruwas, a lot of motorists used the opportunity to cash in by using their personal cars to convey people to offset their fuel bills. More prevalent were the use of private Toyota Siennas as modes of public transport.
On this Sunday, I didn't go to church. At about 10 am, I decided to use the ATM around Allen for the day's cash and also to withdraw the school fees of my little cousin for the new term. Normally, a bank to bank transfer would have sufficed but you know some of these Lagos schools, they prefer actual bank tellers from cash deposits because some of the bills go to different accounts such as PTA and some extracurricular activities. I withdrew a total of 120k with the intention of giving my sister 95k to go pay the school fees the next morning. I withdrew at the GTBank at Allen and crossed the road to get Keke back home. Normally, during the week, the kekes were off the road but being a Sunday and the enforcement officers were enjoying their weekend, so most kekes used the opportunity to hustle. I used one to get to the bank earlier. Soon as I crossed the road, a Sienna pulled up and since they were being used everywhere I didn't suspect a thing. There was a woman by the driver and two guys occupying the immediate two seats behind the driver forcing me to retreat to the back of the bus. They used the woman to bait me. We hadn't reached Oshopey Plaza when one of the guys flashed me a gun and told me to lie down in the space between the both other them. They searched me and took the cash and ATM. (I hadn't taken my phone with me since my house was just a 3 minute Keke ride to the ATM.) Then they knocked me out. I woke up alone in a room and realised it was night already. I began sweating profusely. I checked out the window but I couldn't see anything outside. The window was very dusty from the outside. I'm telling myself "LagosG, you're f******. You're dead!" After a bit, drowning in anxiety, someone came in. He wasn't part of the crew I saw earlier. He said "you don wake abi? You dey sleep o! I think say you don die. If na North dem go don bury you." The time was almost 1am. I was out for more than 12 hours. They took me out to the Sienna again. The house was abandoned and without fence. There was no way for me to know where I was even as Lagos wakawaka boy wey I be. I was going through wild disorientation. These bastards drove me to 4 different ATMs and had me withdraw another 150k which is my withdrawal limit. They didn't ask me to transfer. They were smart. I tried hard to see if I could recognise the area around the banks. but I couldn't because I was laying on the ground in the bus while thy were driving around as they told me to when I was first abducted. After the last withdrawal, I had less than 3k left in my aza. They broke my ATM and kept driving for what seemed like forever. I just kept thinking the worst. What would my family be going through? Yoruba people say a dead child is better than a lost one. This would tear my family apart. I figured we must be on an expressway because the speed was much and they barely used the brakes. After what seemed like forever, the bus began to slow down. The woman was no longer with them and they spoke in a different variation of Yoruba so I didn't understand anything they had been saying the whole time which fuelled my justified paranoia. I saw the the door slide open while the bus was in motion. The guy by the door stood up over me, dragged me and flung me out. It was dawn around past 5am. I saw bush left and right. I was bleeding from my lips, elbows and knees from the fall. I flagged down cars but nobody stopped. I kept walking for about 10 minutes then I saw what looked like women carrying firewood. I ran to them and asked them where I was. My people, they answered that I was at Sagamu!!! They directed me to the police station and said that's how these abductors usually drop people off at that same point. Apparently, the women usually go into the bush to harvest wood used for herbs early in the morning and had witnessed such before.
I walked al the way to the police station with a bloodied shirt and dusty shorts with slippers. Soon as I got to the counter and narrated my ordeal, the said the DPO wasn't there yet and the next thing these people did was lock me up with criminals to wait for the DPO. The ordeal at the station is another story for another day. Long story short, around 9am, after narrating to the DPO too, they called my mother and she had to drive down to Shagamu to literally bail me.

I know I didn't have it as bad as some other people but the anxiety I experienced after was so much. Whenever I saw a Sienna, my heart would skip. I still don't trust people who drive it till today.
Share yours or the one of someone close to you

When did this happen??
Sorry bout it experience

never use those sienna, watch well before you enter bus.

ghettochild:

When did this happen??
Sorry bout it experience

2021

Na wa o

LagosG sorry about your ordeal! I can't imagine the trauma you experienced

Wait oh
You mother still bailed you out from the police station?

Nawa oh
So what’s now the difference between the police officers and the kidnappers

symbianDON:
LagosG sorry about your ordeal! I can't imagine the trauma you experienced

Bro... trauma like that never really leaves you. I can't imagine the level for those who get abducted deep in to the jungle and witness other humans getting slaughtered.

Nemesis0147:
Wait oh
You mother still bailed you out from the police station?

Nawa oh
So what’s now the difference between the police officers and the kidnappers

My guy, I use my leg waka enter there. They still dey form hero on top my case

A few years back I accompanied a German national, a Peruvian, and their spouses to a restaurant we frequented in a medium-sized town in the western part of the country. The Peruvian was an executive from a roofing tile company that was looking for rural land to site a new factory, while the German who brought him to my rural area was a hunting buddy of mine going back many years. Seated at an outdoor restaurant table while downing pepper soup and beer, none of us realized that kidnappers were relaxing at another table in the very same restaurant, casually observing our party of guests while hidden in plain sight.

We parted ways as the evening sun's shadows grew longer, with the guests driving off aboard their brand-new SUV, and me heading back to my village in a battered old car that housed a highly tuned 5-liter V8 engine capable of generating rivers of torque and blistering acceleration G-forces despite the outwardly dilapidated appearance of my trusty chariot. The drive home was uneventful but then came a phone call from the German's line the following morning.

The phone call that was placed from my German hunting friend's handset came in at mid-morning the following day, and the speaker who was obviously of Igbo descent, informed me that he was a kidnapper by profession and that my German friend was in the custody of his gang. Presuming that the impostor speaking with the expatriate's phone had simply stolen or found the handset, I made a few hasty calls but then quickly found out that indeed my friend had been kidnapped on the drive away from that restaurant where we had shared a meal the day previous.

Thus began a surreal fortnight of unmitigated hell during which the two foreign nationals, whose spouses were left behind with their driver and the flashy SUV car at the point of the abduction, suffered starvation and endured relentless beatings all perpetrated to focus the minds of the German and Peruvian embassies in Nigeria, at the risk of killing the captors either by starvation or merciless beatings, until a ransom was paid to buy life and freedom for the starvation weakened captives.

It was only after the German's death a year or so following his harrowing kidnap ordeal, that I learned about the full extent of the horrific experience he suffered while slowly starving to death in a jungle hut under armed guards who were forbidden from speaking to the captors or giving them anything besides water. This incident was a perilously close shave for me as I had shared a leisurely restaurant lunch of pepper soup and beer with those soon-to-be kidnap victims less than fifteen minutes before their SUV was boxed in and forced to a stop at which point the two foreign men were spirited away via a battered old taxi into the kidnappers' jungle detention facility located alongside the Lagos Expressway, where unmitigated primal terror was visited upon the starving emaciated captives for two long weeks.

Jakumo:
A few years back I accompanied a German national, a Peruvian, and their spouses to a restaurant we frequented in a medium-sized town in the western part of the country. The Peruvian was an executive from a roofing tile company that was looking for rural land to site a new factory, while the German who brought him to my rural area was a hunting buddy of mine going back many years. Seated at an outdoor restaurant table while downing pepper soup and beer, none of us realized that kidnappers were relaxing at another table in the very same restaurant, casually observing our party of guests while hidden in plain sight.

We parted ways as the evening sun's shadows grew longer, with the guests driving off aboard their brand-new SUV, and me heading back to my village in a battered old car that housed a highly tuned 5-liter V8 engine capable of generating rivers of torque and blistering acceleration G-forces despite the outwardly dilapidated appearance of my trusty chariot. The drive home was uneventful but then came a phone call from the German's line the following morning.

The phone call that was placed from my German hunting friend's handset came in at mid-morning the following day, and the speaker who was obviously of Igbo descent, informed me that he was a kidnapper by profession and that my German friend was in the custody of his gang. Presuming that the impostor speaking with the expatriate's phone had simply stolen or found the handset, I made a few hasty calls but then quickly found out that indeed my friend had been kidnapped on the drive away from that restaurant where we had shared a meal the day previous.

Thus began a week of unmitigated hell during which the two foreign nationals, whose spouses were left behind with their driver and the flashy SUV car at the point of the abduction, suffered starvation and relentless beatings all perpetrated to focus the minds of the German and Peruvian embassies in Nigeria, at the risk of killing the captors either by starvation or merciless beatings, until a ransom was paid to buy life and freedom for the starvation weakened captives.

It was only after the German's death a year or so following his harrowing kidnap ordeal, that I got to hear about the horrific experience he suffered while slowly starving to death in a jungle hut under armed guards who were forbidden from speaking to the captors or giving them anything besides water. This incident was a close shave for me as I had shared a leisurely restaurant lunch of pepper soup and beer with those kidnap victims less than fifteen minutes before they were forced to a stop in their vehicle and then spirited away via a battered old taxi into the kidnappers' jungle detention facility located alongside the Lagos Expressway, where unmitigated primal terror was visited upon the starving captives for two long weeks.

For say dem kidnap you join, na you dem for beat pass. How much ransom was paid?
You must have been the prime suspect

LagosG:

For say dem kidnap you join, na you dem for beat pass. How much ransom was paid?
You must have been the prime suspect

Na the old jalopy car when I dey drive make Onyisi kidnapper dem feel say I nogo fiti get any family when hold even small money sef to pay.

If dem dash me new awoof car to drive for Nigeria road I nogo take am. Me and my jalopy get as e be o, but if dem try to pursue am, dem go know say man pass man because of the heavy V8 engine when Mukaila mechanic help me work am put inside. If I give am fire like dis enh, the back tire go halla and make big smoke because of speed. My jalopy na authority for Naija road o. Who no know go know.

So police actually detain you because you came to police station for rescue, and your mum actually still bailed you after all the trauma you have pass thru.. Federal Government and IGP should try and look into all this police Anyhow discharge of duties