25th December, 2013
Abiodun Onafuye/Abeokuta
The immediate past primate of Anglican Church, Peter Akinola who was abducted by gunmen in Abeokuta yesterday and was rescued later by the Policemen from Ogun Command today recounted his ordeal in the hands of his abductors.
The clerygman,who worshipped today at the Abeokuta chapel of his church thanked everybody who had shown love and affection to him and his family members during his hours of predicament.
Addressing the congregation at Anglican Communion Church at tkhe Olusegun Osoba Hilltop, Abeokuta appreciated the concern shown and efforts made by individuals when he was abducted by the hoodlums.
According to the former CAN President, “I want to thank all of you for your outpouring of love and prayers, what happened yesterday was what I used to think is drama; something that we used to see on the television, until much more later that I realised it was real”.
Narrating how the incident happened, he said:”I left the house about 11 a.m to go to our site where we are building structures to train young people in Nigeria who are unemployed. The irony of it is that as I was coming out of the place where I had gone to give food to our workers for Christmas, as I was stepping out, these two young men came out of their car from nowhere. They asked me to open the door, knocking the window with their gun butt.
“I instructed my driver, Jonah, to open the door for them, they sandwiched us at the back of the car and they drove off. They told us to put our head down and that they would blow off our heads if we looked up. They drove for about an hour, where we don’t know until we discovered that we were in the midst of a thick forest. Then I requested to talk and informed them that there was no enough fuel in the car.
” They querried us for not having enough fuel in the car and my driver responded that we just returned from a journey. In the bush there, I was suprised at how they were able to locate a filling station, bought N3000 fuel and continued with the journey that was about three in the afternoon.
“They started asking questions about dollars, which I said there was none, i told them I was a village pastor that has just retired and that the car was given to me by the church. They asked about the security of the car and I told them there was none. They searched for it for almost two hours but couldn’t find anything”,he explained.
Akinola further stated,”I was just praying that God of mercy should come to our rescue; I was just remembering how God saved some believers in the Bible and I concluded that if I must die, how can it be in the hands of these people. Unknown to us, the news had started circulating around and people started praying. Meanwhile they have taken everything from us, they have taken my shirt, my shoes. I was left with my singlet and trousers, but my driver was not so lucky. His cloth, trousers and shoes were taken, he was left with boxers.
“They said i should walk on, when we moved about 100 meters from the car, I was asked to take the left while my driver was asked to take the right inside the bush. I was hearing how they were threatening my driver. After a while, we started hearing gun shots, apparently, the police were around. Later we learnt that the Governor himself with the Commissioner of Police, the secretary to the state government led the rescue team. When I couldn’t hear any more gunshots, I trekked back to the footpath shouting for my driver.
“Not quite long, I saw a vehicle coming, they approached me , I raised up my hands and told them it was my car they took and that am looking for my driver. They said they were police and they said I should come into the car. The leader of the police team, the State Anti-robbery Squad, they called him TJ, was a wondereful man, for the first time in my life,I doff my hat for the police for their performance.
“This same man, a muslim, approached me and said they have heard about what am doing that I should not stop, saying God has preserved my life for this purpose. He charged me to do more.
“Right from Imasayi to Ayetoro and right to Randa, it was just beyond my imagination that I came back in peace, but was worried about my driver who I later found out was at the hospital”,he recounted.