After 11 days in kidnappers’ den, 18-year-old
Mary Olaniyan, a student of the Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, has a lot
to be thankful for.
According her, if not for divine intervention,
she might have become a human to be carved up as body parts for ritual killers.
The young lady narrated her miraculous escape
from a forest she found herself after she became unconscious in a cab she
boarded in front of the school gate on September 1, 2017.
The year one student, who lives outside the campus, said after finishing
lectures on campus that day, she was heading home when she boarded the
kidnappers’ vehicle at about 6.30pm outside the main gate of the college along
the Ondo-Ore highway.
According to her, four men were already seated in
the vehicle painted in Ondo State taxi colours.
Olaniyan said, “I boarded the taxi alongside a
lady at the same location and two other men. The two of the men were going to
Yaba in Ondo town.
“As soon as I boarded the vehicle I became unconscious
and by the time I regained my consciousness, I found myself in a building
located inside a thick forest. I didn’t know the exact town where the forest is
located but it is a very thick forest.
“I discovered that there were two guys and three
ladies that had already been kidnapped and kept inside the building in the
forest. The three men that kidnapped us were there too.”
Her 11 days in the forest was an experience she
said she could only describe as hell.
Looking conspicuously emaciated and frail,
Olaniyan, is still shaken, days after her escape.
She shed tears as she narrated that she drank
only water for the 11 days she spent in the captivity.
“The men did not give us food for the time we
were there, they were giving us only water,” she said.
Olaniyan did not describe her abductors as mere
kidnappers who kidnap for ransom.
She explained that it became clear that they
dealt in human parts.
She narrated that they killed their victims and
sold their body parts to “big men” customers many of whom she saw visiting the
camp in expensive cars.
“I saw strange men coming in big vehicles
to collect some things in cellophane bags. I knew it had to be human flesh,”
she said.
On how she escaped from the hands of her captors,
Olaniyan described her freedom as divine, saying she escaped while they
(captors) were quarrelling with one another. She said she used the opportunity
of the fight of her abductors to escape, alongside other victims, into the
bush.
“Fight broke out among the kidnappers over money.
The money was given to them by one of their customers, who came and left with
something they put in a cellophane bag too.
“They did not watch us as they fought. That was
when we used the opportunity to run out of the building in the forest.”
Olaniyan stated.
She said she trekked for three days in the forest
until she got to Ile-Oluji-Ipetu Ijesa Road, where she met a lady on the road
and asked for directions to Ondo town.
Olaniyan was then told that she was close to
Ile-Oluji. Soon after trekking along the road, she explained that she got to
Igbo Oja village near Ondo where she made efforts to reach her mother on the
mobile phone she begged to use from a resident.
Since the abduction of Olaniyan, two other
students of the college – Blessing Oladepo and Mary Oluwasemilore – have been
declared missing after they were suspected to have been kidnapped.
A few days ago, some of the
kidnappers,who were arrested by the men of the Ondo State Police Command,
confessed to be behind abduction of the female students of the institution.
However, Olaniyan in her own case was lucky to
have escaped from the den of the hoodlums following what she described as a
divine intervention.
The Public Relations Officer of the Adeyemi
College of Education, Mrs. Seto Olatuyi, said Olaniyan is a 100-level student
in the History Department of the institution and school authorities declared
her missing when her friends could not locate her.
Reacting to the development, the Provost of the
College, Prof. Olukoya Ogen, expressed gratitude for Olaniran’s safe return and
warned the students to always be vigilant in their movements.
As of the time of filing this report, Olaniyan
was still receiving treatment at a hospital.
Punch Report
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