A civil servant with the Niger State Science and Technical School Board, Muhammed Kindagi, who was one of several other victims abducted from a Niger State Transport Authority (NSTA) bus last week, has said their abductors are beyond doubt, Fulani.
Muhammed who disclosed this to Daily Trust, said he heard the bandits communicate within themselves, in Fulani language, whilst they speak in Hausa when addressing their victims.
While narrating his experience in captivity, he also disclosed that they were separated from the Kagara students who were kept at a close distance, thereby suggesting that their abductors were same with the ones who abducted the Niger school boys weeks prior.
He said, “Immediately we met the bandits, they asked us to park our car and they started shooting before we came out of the car. The bullet tossed my head. When I started seeing blood, I thought the end had come.
“We trekked for 24 hours daily. They usually take us one after the other. That was what we did from the time we were kidnapped till the following morning, ” Kindagi said.
He said they fed twice daily, morning and evening, and drank contaminated water.
“If we eat food in the morning, we won’t eat another one till evening again. They gave us contaminated water to drink. We were made to cook by ourselves because they asked us to cook. We were sleeping on bare floor in the bush. We were not tied but guns were pointed at our heads and they were beating us constantly.
“We met one victim in the camp when we got there. We don’t know how many of the bandits that waylaid us that day but we met a lot of them on our way into the bush. The first day, they took us to a hill, from there we moved under a mango tree. On the third day, we moved inside the bush which was our final destination before we got rescued, “he narrated.
“They beat our women too. There is one useless one among them who didn’t bother whether you are a woman or man before he starts beating you. They beat us with stick. As they are beating us, they are asking us to bring money. All of them are Fulani but they communicated to us in Hausa while they spoke Fulani within themselves.
“They asked us to forgive them and we said we had forgiven them and that they should forgive us too so that we could leave the bush.”