My experience in Kidnappers den -Human rights lawyer,Ozekhome recounts 
 During the celebrations included the slaughtering of a cow at his 
home,Human rights activist, Mike Ozekhome, who was kidnapped for two 
weeks recounted his ordeal
“My ordeal began on Friday August 23, 2013. I left Benin at 2pm for my home town.“I ran into the kidnappers some minutes past 3pm. It was my driver,
 Chinedu, who noticed that a vehicle had been used to block the road and
 he told me that the people were armed robbers. So, I told him to 
quickly turn, but before he could turn, a gun was already on my head. 
one of the men said if he moved an inch they would kill me.
“So, I told my driver to stay put. They dragged Chinedu and I out of the
 car, shot the tyres of the vehicle and locked him in the boot and made 
me lied flat on the floor of their car. I heard them say, Police! 
Police! Police! They also added, ‘no retreat no surrender.’
“I heard a
 staccato of bullets; it was like a war situation as they were firing 
continuously. As they were firing, the car was moving.
“I heard them 
say, ‘oh we have killed some of them, but tomorrow, they (police) will 
come out and lie that some of us were injured but none of us has been 
injured’.”
The victim said the kidnappers drove the vehicle for about
 four hours before dumping them at an uncompleted building in the middle
 of nowhere.
Ozekhome said contrary to earlier assumptions, the kidnappers did not know who he was initially.
He said it was after he had been abducted that the suspects started asking him about personal information.
He
 said, “I was not targeted, meaning that they merely operated randomly. 
It is bad news because it could have been any other person. It was while
 we were in the car that they started asking questions like what was my 
name and I replied, ‘Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN.’
“They searched my 
pocket, took out the complimentary cards and other things. After 
checking one of the cards, one of them said, ‘yes, that is what is 
written on your card.’
“They asked how long I had been practicing, I 
said 32 years. They said if I told them a lie, they would know by the 
following day from the press.”
Ozekhome said the kidnapper’s den was 
run like a camp. He said the kidnappers had a doctor and a cook, adding 
that the place was heavily secured.
He recounted how the kidnappers 
brought in their doctor to cure him of Malaria and Typhoid when he took 
ill at the uncompleted building
He said women and little children were also victims.
“We were about 13 in the camp. One woman and her two children were also there too. I fell ill on two occasions
 and they feared that I might die. The first time they quickly called 
their doctor who also wore veil like them and he gave me some malaria 
drugs,” Ozekhome said.
The victim stated that in the process of 
facilitating his release, the head of his Abuja chamber, Dominic 
Ezerioha, and his son were also abducted.
He said, ‘They said Ezerioha and my son should come for me, but they were abducted and brought to the camp. We were all released about 7am yesterday (Wednesday) in Benin.
 “We were eating most of the time once in a day. We ate Eba and Ogbono, we also ate white rice and jollof rice.
“We were locked up in a room which was very hot. The windows were only opened on two occasions. A colony of mosquitoes descended on us and feasted on us like barbecue.”
The lawyer decried the state of 
insecurity in the country, calling on the Federal Government to offer 
amnesty to all kidnappers and also declare a state of emergency on 
security and youths unemployment.He, however, declined to state how much
 was paid as ransom.
 
 
 
          
      
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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