Folarin Philip Banigbe, 48, is the author of Abduction Chronicles and publisher of The Port Harcourt Microscope, a community free newspaper published bi-weekly in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital. The former engineer with the Shell Company was kidnapped on May 1, 2016. His four-day captivity inspired the writing of Abduction Chronicles. He speaks with Assistant Editor (Arts) OZOLUA UHAKHEME on his encounters with the Holy Spirit while in the kidnappers’ camp, why young men go into kidnapping, and the impact of his community paper on socio-political life in Port Harcourt, among other issues.
What inspired your setting up of a free community paper?
We realised many people don’t read and they won’t buy a newspaper. But, information is important to them. So, we targeted small and medium scale entrepreneurs who want to advertise but there is no such medium. In fact, we created the forum for two reasons.
First, we wanted to give them a platform such that when they pay for advert, we will e able to print and distribute for free. The assurance is that as many people as possible will get the newspaper because it is free and they can see the services. The second reason was because there was negativity about Port Harcourt. And we thought there were positive things going on in Port Harcourt, which we could identify as residents. So, we came up with the idea of how to overshadow the negativity with positive news about the city. At the peak, we were delivering to states in the Southsouth and Southeast regions. Gradually, due to state of the economy, production cost became three times high.This forced us to reduce circulation till it eventually became online publication.
What was the focus of the paper?
It was mainly of general stories, advertisements and articles. Until the politicians came we were creating news around environment, community issues and the people. We sometimes do special reports on the various tribes in River State. We were trying to raise the awareness of the people. If you look at the history of Okrika, they have a strong link with the Kalabari but because of politics the narrative is being changed. So, it was like trying to set the record straight. It also drew a lot of reactions because people were writing rejoinders. And since it was free, people pick it up easily.
Looking back, is it a dream project you have missed?
I believe that a community newspaper has a lot of value, but again because we are in the age of internet, you find micro blogs everywhere and they get more reach. So, as a sign of changing times, we would look at the modern days. But, in the past, it was a useful way to bring up what’s going on in the community. In the United Kingdom, even though they have a lot of smart phones, they still have community newspapers. Overall, it was fulfilling for me. Do I miss it? Maybe yes and maybe no.
Would you link your kidnap to activities of your newspaper?
At first, I thought so. In fact, if you read the book you will find the first encounter I had with the ‘Kapo’ was political. The first thing that came to my mind was, maybe, they are his boys. But, then I thought they don’t operate in this manner. So, I threw that away. And when one of them said they would kill all politicians, I then figured out they were just ranting. As I progressed in captivity, I knew it was simply about money. So, I didn’t take politics as a factor.
From your experience in captivity, what could be the causes of kidnapping?
Well, for me, the root causes of the problems we facing are lack of values, loss of sense of community and humanity. Again, it depends on the direction we wish to address the issues. For some people, it is drug substance or alcohol. So, I don’t know what drives people, but whatever is responsible has a link to the factors I mentioned. Some people say it is poverty or economic problems. But, I disagree. Agreed there are economic problems. However, there is a golden rule: “Do unto others what you want them to do to you.” It doesn’t matter whether you are a Christian or not. All religions preach that. So, it can’t be that it is poverty that will make you lose that value. We make excuses for illegality. One of the kidnappers told me that he didn’t know his parents and that his grandmother who took care of him died when he was five.
Desperation may have led him there. But there are other people whose parents died like that but didn’t turn to crime. Even before that, with due respect to his explanations of why he took to kidnapping, it can be a strategy he adopted to attract people’s pity.
How did you prepare yourself for that mental torture?
Before I was kidnapped, my landlord had been kidnapped and tortured, so I used him as an example to brace up to the challenges. If a man at 60 could withstand such torture, I too I could withstand it. But, again, how I knew mine was likely different was that I wasn’t really tortured, unlike his case. His family had to fly him abroad for three months’medical treatment. My injury wasn’t much except from the one I had when returning from camp. I realised it was a spiritual work, that was why they didn’t torture me much.
You said your wife dreamt about the incident. Do you think if you had prayed well about it, maybe it would have been averted?
I remembered the day it unfolded. It was exactly what she saw in the dream. But, we both prayed about it, talked about it and I forgot about it.
You said you had a wound on your head that was dripping blood while you were being ferried. How?
I had wounds all over my body when I came out of captivity. I realised that if my blood was high in sugar level, I would have died because my family have a history of diabetes. There are so many things that you wouldn’t know when they happened, but you would realise that you are doing something. It will be later that you will know. That brought me to the understanding that God doesn’t tell you when he wants to test you.
Can you share the process of writing the book and how you felt when you completed it?
The book is targeted at varous audiences and one of the things I tried to do because of my background as a writer, is to appeal to every emotion. The kidnap experience is like a spiritual experience. Ultimately, that’s how I felt.
How do you mean by spiritual experience?
I will get to that. However, a lot of people don’t understand spirituality, so they’ll just colour the story. And because I am coming from a background of ministry, a lot of people will say, ‘Oh it’s another pastor’s book’. So, I didn’t want them to think like that because I already had a problem with the way pastors’ doctrines are preached. So, I didn’t want people to go into that to mode it as a man of God. Everybody is a child of God. So, I was careful to write it in the way that it doesn’t come out as a spiritual book but I was also careful to be sure that I captured all the experiences that were spiritual in a contemporary way. So, if you actually read through it, chances are that spirituality hits you. But, if you’re not spiritual you will just read the story. When I got there the first and second day, I was always sitting down and praying and I heard a voice from the Holy Spirit saying you’re going to write a book about this. And I said to say what? That they kidnapped your son and he paid ransom, how do you get glory from that? That was the first conversation I had with the Holy Spirit. So, I just dismissed it that I was never going to write a book about it. But, as I progressed in the experience it became obvious why I was told to write a book because the rest of the circumstances showed clearly that there was something I was meant to do in the kidnappers’ camp. And from the Christian perspective, I have always believed that sometimes you don’t know the reason you are where you spend a lot of time. Maybe I wouldn’t have been there for five days because the very first message that I got was to tell the ‘Kapo’ that he had a swollen on his body and that God wants to heal it. But, when I heard the voice I turned that around because I was angry at that time. The desperation mixed with anger. How can this happen to me? I serve God, which is the standard process. So, when I heard that, I turned it to a prayer point. But that’s the way an average Christian behaves. Anytime I finished praying I just heard a voice of the Holy Spirit laughing and I will know I have done something wrong. It was on the third day I asked what exactly does God want out of this. And that was when the rest of the revelation started to come up. So, when I remembered I had to write a book, I then realised that what God wanted was to use my experience to teach that the way men think about God and the answers we want is not the way He sees it. At first, I was sure that I’ll not pay the ransom and I was thinking God will do something, but was scared the night He told me why I was there. However, when I was paying the ransom, I was silently telling God, ‘you know I worked hard for this money, it was my sweat.’ The Holy Spirit said, ‘Okay, if I don’t let you pay the money, what are you going do with it? I said you know I want to give it to the church for the land.
But, before the evening of that day, I was released and the rest of the revelation came through. I was kidnapped in May and I didn’t start to write the book until September because I forgot. I thought I could not write it but I kept being reminded. One day, I said, ‘okay I will start’. I have come to realise why God wanted me to write the book because anytime I talked about the event, it touches people. I wrote the book within three months of relocating to Abuja.
Having written the book, are you relieved?
I was relieved before I wrote the book because when I came out of the kidnappers’den, I studied trauma. I realised that one of the reasons people continue to be traumatised is because they cannot find closure to the event. For me, before I left, I had found closure. I knew what I was going to do at that point. In my mind, I was going back to my house and I was rehearsing how everybody would be jumping when I got home.
How is the book faring in the market?
People say if you sell 1000 books in Nigeria, you are a best seller. One thousand books in a country of how many million people? So, when we were printing, it took us time, but the book came out in May last year and it was already in my office in Lagos as at March ending. I started writing the book in September, finished it by November. So, all of the process was a couple of months. If people are finding it difficult to publish, let me set up an independent publishing firm and when I began I will start to distribute A bookseller said he had to read the book first before he could stock it in his book shop.The reading will take six months. I was shocked six months to read how many pages? Unfortunately, I found out that putting your book in a book shop requires no advertising or payment. It’s a place somebody can just walk in and buy the book. So, I said, ‘Okay if this is what people go through no wonder they are not selling up to 1000 copies’. But by effort, we have sold over 2000 copies.
If people are finding it difficult to publish, let me set up an independent publishing firm and when I begin I will start to distribute.
Some people asked why you did not include photos in the book and how much you paid as ransom.
People asked why I didn’t mention how much I paid. Did that matter? What difference does that make? First, when I was kidnapped, they took me to a water side. On a regular day, there will be six to seven check points at that time of the night. The car didn’t stop. When I was coming back, there were four check points. The moment I got to a safe place, some good Samaritans helped me with a phone to put a call across to my home.
Have you gone back to the couple that provided you shelter on your return from the den?
When I got to a point that I couldn’t move again few minutes after, I heard voices. I called out to them and one them came to me and took me to a camp which he said was a teaching camp. I promised them I would come back. By the time I could get the families contact it was a month already. I was going to give them about N120,000 but their telephone number wasn’t going through. So, when brother went back there, there was nothing there again. I couldn’t put all of this incidence in the book because it would have been too controversial.
Having written the book, are you relieved?
I was relieved before I wrote the book because when I came out of the kidnappers’ den, I studied trauma I realise that one of the reason people continue to be traumatised is because they cannot find closure to the event. Before I left I have found closure. I knew what I was going to do. In my mind I was going back to my house. I was rehearsing how everybody will be jumping when I get home.
Do you have specialised areas in your publishing firm?
Recently, we merged with a distribution company to create a bigger plan. We were doing Africa-wide distribution and the company will be launched in February 2020.
next year. We will be exposed to the media but before we do that, we wanted to make sure we have enough Africa English speaking countries. The idea is to move minimum Nigerian book shops, not a regular book shops. People don’t really go to bookshops but will go to the mall to buy books. What we are doing are love stuff, legends series and African heritage series.
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