Aminat Taiwo one of the abductees forcefully taken away by unknown gunmen on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, last week has narrated her ordeal.
Taiwo confirmed that her dad paid a ransom of 3.2m before she was released alongside her friend Tobi Orekoya.
Aminat explained that they were on their way to a wedding in Ibadan when the kidnappers accosted them on the expressway.
Taiwo told pressmen that all the kidnapped victims were told to queue and enter the forest at the Ibadan end of the road.
The victim, her friend and some other road users were kidnapped last Friday near the Sat Guru Maharaji Garden at the Ibadan end of the expressway.
The abductors contacted the families of the victims and demanded ransom ranging from N50m to N10m.
It was, however, reported that Aminat, her friend, a former Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Prof. Adigun Agbaje, and a student of the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Olayemi Adejare, were released on Sunday after two days in captivity.
Aminat added that the kidnappers didn’t give them food or drinks during their stay in captivity.
She added that some who couldn’t meet up their demands after the deadline were killed in the forest.
She said, “Those kidnappers were more than 30; they covered their faces. They were putting on army and police uniforms.
“They were armed to the teeth; they had guns, swords, knives and other weapons.
“They asked us to lie down and collected all our money and phones. They collected gold chains, wristwatches, and other jewellery.
“At first, we thought they just wanted to rob us, but to our greatest surprise, after stripping us of everything we had, they asked us to start moving inside a deep forest. We walked for more than two hours inside the forest. When we got to a place, they asked us to lie down.
“We were moving in the forest for several hours; they did not give us water or food. We licked water on leaves in the forest.
“For the two days I spent with them, we did not stay too long in a place before they moved us to another place.”
Her father, Kayode Taiwo, said the family raised N800,000 from donations across the world.
He, however, said family members and friends supported him before he raised the money demanded by the kidnappers.
He said, “Some people donated N1,000, N500, N200, N400. By the time we calculated everything, it was around N800,000.
“I paid N2m as ransom for my daughter, while her friend’s parents paid N1.2m. But I was the one that handed over everything to them at the hideout.
“When I was at Toll Gate, they asked me to wait there and collect the money the mother of my daughter’s friend was bringing. They told me I should come alone that the woman could not come to where they were.”
