A former Secretary to the Goverment of the Federation, SGF, Chief Ole Falae who was kidnapped on Monday September 21 and released Thursday September 24 by suspected Fulani herdsmen has admitted to the paying of a certain amount of money to secure his release.
He made this statement when a former Chief of Defence Staff, General Alani Akinrinade paid a visit to him in his Akure, Ondo State residence on Monday.
He said, “There were six of them with three or four guns and every half an hour or so they will say, ‘Baba we are going to kill you; if you don’t give us money we are going to kill you.’
“On Wednesday one of them came and said, ‘look we are going to leave here on Thursday morning. Since we cannot leave you here alone, if we don’t get what we want, we are going to kill you.
“And they said they gave me until 3pm, and if at 3pm they don’t get the money, they would execute me. I thank God that at 21 minutes to 3pm, one of them came and said, ‘the money don complete.’
“When the hoodlums came, they slashed me with their cutlasses; they said I was not cooperating. They dragged me barefooted into the bush. After dragging me around for about two hours, they stopped somewhere and asked me to phone my wife and tell her that I had been kidnapped and taken out of Ondo State and that was a lie.
“It was about 2.30pm on Monday that we started walking with very few stops until 2am the following morning. I suspect that I must have covered a minimum of 15 kilometres. That morning, I did not eat anything. So all day I had no food, no water and I walked close to 15km. How I survived, I cannot really remember. At some point one of them gave me rubber slippers. We walked until about 2am. At some point they called for an okada(motorcycle). At about 2.30am the okada man took me way down; I had no clue where we were going. Finally they dumped me somewhere, where I was until I was released on Thursday.
“In that place, we all slept on the floor on leaves. Unfortunately, the rain came in the night and I was thoroughly drenched. One of them brought a small umbrella to cover my head, but the rest of my body was not covered. They offered me bread, but I told them I could not eat it. I asked for a bottle of coke, which was what I drank everyday to have the requisite strength to survive and to continue on the march, because they were permanently moving. They were changing locations at two to three times a day. I suspect because they did not want the police to succeed in tracing them.
“The day they said I should go, one of them stitched my buba, which was in tatters. When I came out of the bush, I was able to find an okada rider, who took me to Owo. The place was about 10km from Owo town. The place was between Owo and Ifon. I walked most of the distance from my farm to that place. Miraculously I was not tired, I was not hungry and I was not afraid of them at all. Each time they said, ‘Baba we will kill you,’ I will tell them, ‘no, insha Allah, you will not kill me.’
“It was when I got back home that I became completely exhausted. But I am now 80 per cent fit and I know that in the next few days, I will be up again.
The former SGF warned “this sort of thing should not be allowed to happen again as it could result to even graver consequences.
“It is not because of me. As for me, I am a very humble person, but by virtue of what God has made me and the status God has given me, it is an insult to our race that a man like me could be abducted by a bunch of hoodlums.
“By the way, one of them told me that if after I had left them, talk nonsense that they will come and catch me again. That is the kind of insult I received.”
The Former Chief Of Defence Staff General Akinrinade also described the recent abduction of chief Falae as an insult on the entire Yoruba nation.
He asked the Federal Government should find a lasting solution to the activities of kidnappers in the country.
He stated that kidnapping is more pronounced in the South West now, adding that criminals now penetrate into Yoruba land more than before.
He said the recent abduction of Falae was an height of insult not only to the Yoruba race in the South West Nigeria, but the Nation as a whole.
“This is a big insult to the Yoruba nation. Chief Olu Falae was traumatized in the hands of these hoodlums. This is a gentle man who is making farming for a living and doing well with it,”
He said “the fact that the Yoruba people are hospitable in their dealings with other tribes should not be a basis for dis-respecting its leaders including its culture and norms.”
