When 47-year-old businessman and pastor, Folarin Banigbe was abducted from his Port-Harcourt residence on the anniversary of his wedding in May 2016, little did he know it was going to be a five-day ordeal. The kidnap survivor, who only recently published a book on his ordeal, tells Sunday Oguntola the story of his suffering, intrigues and negotiations that finally led to payment of his ransom and release.
THE incidence of your kidnap would probably go down as the rudest shock in your life….
It had to be. I had been living on my own for about twenty years and nobody ever knocked on my window. I had never been involved in any kind of robbery and nobody ever broke into my house. Initially I thought it was a robbery and I was shocked that people could even come to my home to rob me. You know as a Christian, you kind of get to that point, where you think no evil shall come near your dwelling place….
However, once they came in, I had no time to be afraid or be annoyed with them. I just had to deal with the situation. As I went with them that day, those conflicts of course arose within me. Did I do anything wrong? Usually, that is the first place a Christian should begin from. Did I open my door in a way?
I quickly convinced myself it wasn’t about me; so, it was about God. But at that time I didn’t have a clue. Whatever God was doing, He definitely put me in harm’s way. That took a few days to sort of come to grips with. Reflectively, I am grateful that I was kidnapped than for someone to have been raped or shot. That would have been an enduring pain. What if they had tried to rape my wife? Would I be looking at them or would I have been shot dead for refusing?
We had two young ladies visiting at the time. I could almost bet my life that one of them was a virgin. What would I have said if they had defiled her? In retrospect, it was better that I was the one who was battered and kidnapped because I could deal with that, than watch other people in the household face their wrath.
My longest five days ever!
I was with them for five days, and it had to be my longest five days ever. At the beginning, it didn’t look like it was going to be that long. The moment I realised it was a kidnap, I knew it was a matter of cash and carry. I was kidnapped Saturday midnight, so I couldn’t have bailed my way out on Sunday. Unfortunately, the following Monday was May 1, a public holiday and banks won’t open. So, I knew I wouldn’t get myself out earlier than Tuesday. I eventually left on Wednesday night, after four nights and five days.
I am naturally a very restless person. On a normal day, I don’t get to sleep till midnight and I’m awake by 5:00 am. So sitting at a place for 24 hours without knowing my fate was traumatic. You don’t even know if they would shoot you after getting paid.
On one of the occasions when they were taking me out for punishment because my people didn’t pay up in time, I told them, “Look I am the one who is going to pay. I am the one who is here. If my people can’t pay up in time, why are you punishing me?”
Was it physical punishment?
Yes, around 6.30pm, they took me inside a jungle and were going to leave me there for the night. They showed me a shallow grave where they buried someone who tried to run away. One of them threatened to shoot if I ran. To be honest, I didn’t see anything that looked like a shallow grave. They told me their boss said I should sleep there because my people haven’t complied and walked away.
I was left all alone, although one of them was a bit friendly. He came back and gave me a flashlight and went away. I sat there, darkness all around me. I heard sounds of all kinds of animals that I didn’t even understand. But I didn’t know where to go. Even if I tried to run, to where? What came to my mind was to just sit there. Then, I started praying. When you are in a place like that all alone, it looks like forever. Later they came back to say that their boss said they should bring me.
In retrospect, I don’t think I was there for up to an hour but it looked to me like forever. So, they took me back into the safe house. Aside that, it was a moment when you got to understand that a lot of things were not under your control. Your fate was determined by other people and you had to seek permission before you did anything. These guys were half of the time stoned with marijuana and armed with AK47. You don’t want to argue with people like that.
Were they all armed with AK47?
This is how it works. A minimum of two armed people would be guarding you. The first day, they were all armed but when they got a bit comfortable, they reduced it to two. Their boss didn’t stay there, but he came every day, morning and night. He always came in an entourage. They were either armed with machete or whatever. Sometimes he came with three or seven people.
Negotiating the ransom
Meanwhile, I was usually left all alone in the house. They probably reckoned that the maximum psychological blow is when you are all alone, as against when you have somebody to share your pains with. I was blind-folded most of the time. After the first day, we negotiated the ransom. I don’t say this to people, but they started with N30m. But I told the guy, ‘Look if I have N30m, I won’t be in Port Harcourt. So, I started with N500, 000.
Do you think you were targeted?
There are three categories of kidnappers. There are those who apprehend you on the road and just take you without knowing your identity. Then there are those who trace you because you are driving a good car. The highest level is those that come to your house. These guys came to my house and practically broke my wall. Obviously, I was targeted. They knew what they were looking for. It was premeditated and planned. Who could have planned it? I wouldn’t know.
Have you tried to find out?
I had my suspicion because these things come to you almost immediately. We are very open people. My house is almost like a Mecca because I also pastor a church. We have longevity among people. Those that fix things for us, we have been together for almost 10/15 years. This is because the devil you know is better than the angel you do not see.
That very day, the guy that does my DSTV came to fix it. Then my daughter said the TV upstairs in the lunch wasn’t working. I asked him if he could fix it; he said no, but somebody that he works with could. I was at work, so I asked my wife to handle the transaction. The guy who came in to check it said it was the power pack. He said he would bring it back the next day. When I got home, my wife told me about how the guy was complaining of not having money and how everyone around him was into one vice or the other and he had been tempted severally.
So, she found herself counseling him. The following day, he brought the TV at 7:30pm on Saturday and I had to walk him to the door. I gave him some amount for transportation. He stood at the veranda and was looking around. It was going to rain, so I asked if he would wait for the rain or brave it.
He said he would brave it. The kidnap happened around 1:30 am that same day. Meanwhile, while the guy was around, he was following the DSTV guy from room to room. He spent about three hours in the house. Could he have been the one? That I wouldn’t know but if I was to suspect someone, he was the prime suspect.
Now, I don’t want to know who it is because what that does to you is make you suspect everybody. And that’s not the way to live. It must have been by someone who made himself available for the devil to use. If the person shows up to say I am the one, I would say, no problem.
Back to the negotiation
The boss didn’t talk to me about money. They took me out of the safe house to the landing point and handed me over to another set. Those ones took me on a boat ride and handed me to another set who took me to an open space on an island.
It was this third set that questioned me: How much you go pay? I said ‘Wetin I buy from your hand?’ I told them that if they would accept N500,000, I would arrange for it.
They took me back to the safe house where I had the first interesting conversation with them. They asked me what I do? I said I am a printer of a newspaper based in Port Harcourt called Microscope. They said what else do you do? I said I am a contractor, a hustler and a pastor. But I told them I am not the owner of the church, so they don’t go thinking that I am the GO. Then they went into a discussion on how the rich don’t help the poor. There, I saw an opportunity to educate them. I said you know what? ‘With the little that I have, I help people. Half of my employees are from Niger Delta. You can’t get to the rich people that don’t help the poor. Is that why you are taking me? I am not a rich man and we are both victims. So, why are you taking me? Even if the rich don’t help, it is not a justification for what you are doing.’ They left me after that to smoke their ‘igbo’.
I prayed that the Lord should help me not to be passive when I should be aggressive and not to be aggressive when I should be passive. One of them came back to say he came to give me a piece of advice because he liked the way I talked. He said that I should not fidget before his boss when he comes. That I should not show any form of fear, and that if I did, he would harass me. He said I should just talk to him man- to- man. I said okay and thanked him.
That was my first answered prayer. The Capo came back to threaten me but I kept calm. He asked me the amount I had in my UBA account and I told him I didn’t know.
Back at home, his boys had collected all our ATM cards. When he was about leaving, I told him, “Capo call my people. I know that I am safe but they don’t know anything.”
I said they would report to the police if he didn’t call them to let them know where I was. He then said I should give him my wife’s number, so he could negotiate with her. I said my wife didn’t have any number because his boys took all our phones. So, I told him that I would give him my brother’s number but I actually gave him my pastor’s number. He called him to say: “Is this Pastor Lekan? Na we dey hold your brother.” That was the last thing that I heard as he walked away.
How was the ransom paid?
On that Wednesday morning, they had come ranting as usual and I told him to calm down. That morning, I was vexed in my spirit; I went to my corner to pray for about one hour. After that, I sent one of them to call the Capo. I told him “Capo, this money, I am the one to pay you and I am here. You people would have to return my car because I can’t pay such amount and still forfeit my car.”
He said they would return it. I went ahead to tell him that I also needed my laptop because I am a writer and I have some write-ups that I was yet to publish. I added that I would settle his boys N5, 000 extra.
I told him to get me slippers because my legs were dead then. I then said: “Capo, una don come carry me from house; after I comot here, if I see anybody for my domot, I go worry.” He assured me that nobody would come to my house afterwards.
His boys started shouting in their dialect, protesting why he would let me go without payment. While they were doing that, he told me to stand aside. I stood aside and the Holy Spirit told me ‘Well done, so you can negotiate for your freedom but when I told you to tell him something about his health on the first day, you said you were afraid.’ As I was trying to give the reason for doing what I did, I saw an open vision. I was standing there and it was like someone playing a video to me.
Two months before that time, I’d woken up around 1am. I couldn’t go back to sleep for about 40 minutes. Usually when I can’t go back to sleep that quickly, I take it that God wants me to pray about something. So, I would start praying and studying the scriptures. Sometimes, he would tell me what it is and sometimes I would just pray through. As soon as I entered the house, my wife was awake. Then she told me, Folarin, I had a funny dream.
She saw that three people gained access into our house. They did come in through the door and had guns with police uniforms on them and took me away. The next time, she saw blood was all over me. She asked if there was anything I was doing that could be bad, I told her there was nothing I was doing that she didn’t know about. I was supposed to sign a deal with the Rivers State government; I had made a proposal to them and they liked it. I was about to sign a deal with them when the big boys came to say that we should set up a company, which will run the deal. I agreed because they were insiders.
It wasn’t a very comfortable thing for me but I just had to leave it. I said okay because this was the only thing that I thought it could be. The following day, I thought about it but I couldn’t get anything out of it. So I left it. As I was standing there that morning, the Holy Spirit said I should check the dream with what happened that night. I said this is exactly the same thing.
I asked, do you know about it and He said yes and I was like, why? He took me back to the word of knowledge and he gave me the first and second name.
What was the word of knowledge?
I was praying and He said that I should tell him that he had a swelling in his body. I was taking deliverance prayer and exercising my authority as a child of God. After the prayer, the Holy Spirit just laughed. Then I knew that I had prayed rubbish. He said ‘tell him that I am ready to heal him but that he has to come back to Me.’ I was like what are you saying? I am talking about how to get out of here and you are telling me something else.
I kept quiet about it and He also was quiet. I said you showed me that they would rob us but you didn’t tell me that I would be kidnapped. So I knew that he was involved in the beginning and he stopped talking to me.
Back to my discussion with the Capo; he said: “Oga I go release you but you go follow me go my shrine go swear.” I told him it would never happen. From then till about 7pm, the Holy Spirit was speaking to me. In all my Christian life put together, the spiritual encounters I had were insignificant compared to the one that I had there.
As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit told me the Capo’s name and in my mind, I was like why is he telling me his name? He told me his herbalist’s name too. He told me to tell him that he would build a church for Him.
He told me all kinds of stuff. After a while, He started professing. I even became afraid because of the voice I was hearing and the things he was telling me because He really told me a lot.
Pastor Lekan called about 2pm to ask how they would get the money across and that they would call back at 4:00pm. At 5pm, he gave me the phone that Pastor Lekan wanted to speak with me.
He said he wanted to be sure I was alive. They went to collect the money without me, and then came back and counted it.
Around 8pm, I asked to see the Capo. I asked for only ten minutes of his time. His boys started shouting but I shut them up. I said: “Capo, this thing wey happen, you know say God don show me and my wife since two months ago.”
He said ‘how’ and I told him the dream. I then said ‘the Holy Spirit told me to tell you something, so make you listen very well.’ I told him the first one about the swelling in his body.
I then called him by his name. He asked how I got to know his name, I said through the same Holy Spirit. Then I added: “Capo me and you go be brothers o. Me and you go be friends. Na you sabi where I dey, so na you go come find me. But, I know say I go help you for this life.”
I added that he would become a pastor and he said, ‘Excuse me sir, what did you call the name of the church?’ I told him. I went further to tell him that God said his priest too will serve the Lord; that he should go to the church near where he stays and lie on the altar and the pastor would pray for him.
Before I was kidnapped, I was preparing a sermon for Sunday when the Holy Spirit told me to change the topic. The new topic that he gave me was “Fighting for your real destiny” but I couldn’t yet relate to it. That afternoon, He told me the message was for that guy. When I was done, the Capo said ‘you can go.’ He counted some amount for me as fare.
Journey to freedom
I was put in a canoe by two of the boys. One of them said ‘Pastor, pray for us.’ I said I have been praying for you all these while. I told them that they had blood covenant with this guy, that they should not try to leave before he leaves. ‘If you do, he will kill you. But you all need to leave and the time is very short.’ So, I prayed for them.
I had never entered a canoe, so I was rocking with the canoe and the guy said I should sit on the floor. I tried to count the number of paddles to be able to calculate the distance.
The canoe man, who had been given instruction on where to drop me, asked where I was going. I told him Port Harcourt. So, he took the opposite direction, then dropped me off in a marsh land where we had to struggle to get out. I could have died.
He didn’t know it was a marsh land. As soon as I put my foot on it, I started sinking. Considering that I hadn’t eaten anything good in five days, I had no strength. All they gave me was cracker biscuit and meat pie once or twice a day. It was a matter of life and death, and it got to a point where I handed over my life to God because I was truly exhausted. But once I told God there was nothing else I could do, four guys showed up in less than two minutes to rescue me.
It turned out I was in a riverine community with fishermen. They contacted my family who came to pick me to the hotel where everyone had been moved to.
A lot of people have gone through this ordeal but they never talk about it…
…I may not have talked about it too if not that I know that it happened for a purpose and it was a divine assignment. On August 1, I left Port-Harcourt for Abuja because God told me to leave town.