- Rofiat Lawal, a serving member of the National Youth Service Corps, was taken hostage on the Benin-Ore Expressway last Tuesday.
- Additionally, she noted that one of the abductors, who is Fulani, wore her NYSC uniform.
- Recall that Rofiat was kidnapped while heading to her primary job in Oyo State while coming from Edo State.
Rofiat Lawal, a serving member of the National Youth Service Corps, was taken hostage on the Benin-Ore Expressway last Tuesday. She disclosed that her kidnappers warned they would force her into marriage and move her to Sokoto unless her family paid a ransom.
Additionally, she noted that one of the abductors, who is Fulani, wore her NYSC uniform.
Recall that Rofiat was kidnapped while heading to her primary job in Oyo State while coming from Edo State.
In an exclusive interview with a Punch journalist on Sunday, Rofiat explained that the kidnappers ambushed the vehicle she was traveling in along the Ore section of the expressway.
She revealed that among the 10 people in the vehicle, six were kidnapped and taken into the bushes by the roadside.
She mentioned that the kidnappers stole valuable items, including money and mobile phones, as well as her NYSC uniform, which one of them wore.
The corper stated that they walked for seven hours on the first day of their abduction before getting a chance to rest.
She said, “On our way coming from Benin to Ore, they stopped our vehicle. I was sitting at the front and what I heard was gunshots. When I raised my head, I saw three people with guns in front of the vehicle and three people at the back. The driver tried to escape but he could not. So, they asked us to lie down and took six of us.
“They led us into the bush, searched us and collected our phones and money. Some of the victims were marketwomen and they collected all their money, which ranged from N600,000 to N1.2m and so on, but I was with N15,000, which they took from me. One of them took my NYSC uniform and wore it.
“After they collected our valuables, we trekked from 3 pm to 10 pm in the bush. During the day, they would ask us to sit somewhere in the forest and at night, they would ask us to start trekking. That was how we spent the four days with them.”
She explained that other victims, mainly older people and traders, were beaten multiple times over the four days they were held captive.
When asked about her own injuries, she said they didn’t torture her like they did to the others, but one of the kidnappers did threaten to marry her and take her to Sokoto State.
“One of them said he would marry me and take me to Sokoto if my family refused to pay ransom. I was less harassed, unlike the other victims who were older than me. I was the youngest among those of us who were kidnapped. They did not even know if I was a corps member or not, they were just concerned about the money they wanted to get from us.
“I don’t know the total ransom that the six of us kidnapped paid as ransom. Some paid N2m, N3m and so on, depending on how your family negotiated.”
When asked if they had food during the four days of captivity, she said the kidnappers had garri, which they provided to them a few times.
“They carried a cooler with them which was stored with garri. That was what they gave us on a few occasions.
“They were prepared for the operation and it does not seem like that was their first time doing it”.
She asked the NYSC authority to give her some time to rest after the tough experience she went through in those four days.
“The NYSC authority has reached out to me. The State Coordinator and my Local Government Inspector have called to check up on me. My appeal is that they should give me some days to rest and get medical attention because of the traumatic experience I had gone through for the four days.
“I do not regret participating in the NYSC because what will happen will happen. Others whom we were kidnapped together were not NYSC members,” she concluded.
She expressed her gratitude to her family for gathering the ransom and freeing her from captivity.
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