How Student, 23, Was Kidnapped In Kogi, Found In Lagos A Week Later

 

John Atabor
John Atabor, a 23-year-old, 300 level Civil Engineering student of the Federal Polytechnic, Idah, Kogi State, was kidnapped on Tuesday, November 19, 2013, and released by his captors a week later, on November 26.
In the afternoon of November 19, Mr. Atabor left his hostel, and, as he walked down the road within his campus, an ash-coloured Mercedes car with four male passengers suddenly pulled up beside him and called his attention. As there were other students nearby, Mr. Atabor obliged them.
"That was all I could remember," he recalls. "Even before I got to the campus gate, I was not myself anymore. I began to think that I must have been hypnotised."
Mr. Atabor also says that, despite other students' presence nearby, he could not call for help, and no one raised the alarm.
"We drove out of the campus' gate... and that was how my journey to Lagos began."
According to Mr. Atabor, the four men took him to Lagos, where they locked him up in an unknown building.
"I didn't know where I was, and I was not allowed to come out for any reason."
One night, one of the abductors came to his cubicle and asked him if he would still find his way back.
"It was then that I realised that I was still alive and in this world, because where I was kept, it was difficult to hear any sound. Where I was kept, I was only given water and bread. Most times, I would be asleep and just wake up to see the food there. I never saw the person who brought the food. That still remains a mystery," the young man says.
The next morning, the same man returned to him and informed he would be on his way home before nightfall.
"He gave me the phone and told me to call anyone I wanted to come pick me. The first name that came to mind was my father's, and I called him. He wanted to know where I was and after asking the people around, I informed him that I was in Alaba Suru in Ojo, Lagos State," Atabor says.
His father, Paul Garuba Atabor, was ecstatic to hear his son. When he got the details, he called his brother, a soldier serving at the Ojo Barracks.
"My brother went to Alaba Suru armed and eventually saw John Atabor alive without bruises. I give unequivocal thanks to God for His goodness," the father says.
"When I got the news of my son's ordeal, I tried to think about someone who I must have offended, but I could not remember anyone. The only alternative I came up with was to give praise to God and engage in prayer sessions for as long as the ordeal lasted."
The elder Atabor recalled that he made several phone calls to relations and friends within and outside Kogi State, letting them know what had happened to his son.
The thanks-giving service organised in honour of the returned Atabor-junior was well-attended. Joyous worshippers thronged to the church, where they piled into the pew of the Saint Mary Immaculate Catholic Cathedral Lokoja, Kogi State and joined the Atabors in thanking God.
The father revealed that he could not estimate how much was spent, but remained ever grateful to God for his mercies.