My Experience With My Abductors + Who I Think They Are- Donu Kogbara

Veteran journalist who works for BBC, the Mail and Vanguard
Newspaper, Donu Kogbara has explained to journalists in her home how she was
eventually released from the den of her kidnappers after 13 days in their custody.
Donu who tried to laugh at the situation inbetween as she answered some
questions from journalists, said it was not a good experience, but her
kidnapper were fair to her. She said when they called Vanguard publisher and asked
for a big ransom, she told them she wasn’t worth the amount they demanded.
Below is how Vanguard reports her narration. So glad she is back.

The state Police Commissioner, Mr Musa Kimo, was probably
her first visitor about 6:30 am when Sunday Vanguard got there. It was clear
she had just finished sipping a cup of Lipton tea. The empty tea cup was still
on the  table by her side.

Occasionally, she laughed as she tried to make light her
experience in the hands of the kidnappers.

“I was dumped in the middle of the creeks, leading to
nowhere around 10 pm on Friday. And they forced an innocent fisherman to take
me to Borokiri”, she recalled, laughing.

You could see desperation on the part of the journalists to
catch every word that came out of her as she responded to their questions.

“I am very happy to say that I have been released. I am
alive, that is all that matters despite all the things that were lost in the
robbery that preceded the abduction. I thank Vanguard Newspaper, my paper, for
the love and support that I received from my colleagues and Uncle Sam Amuka,
the publisher. He was actually the first person called when I was abducted”,
Kogbara said.

She paused. Then suddenly there was general laughter as she
recalled how much the kidnappers put on her as ransom.

“I told them I was not worth what they demanded for”, she
said.

According to her, before they whisked her away from her Port
Harcourt residence in the early hours of August 30, the abductors first robbed
the family of cash and jewelries. Then, they blindfolded her and took her
straight to the creeks,

“Before we left the house, they took my money and jewelries,
though the money was not much”, the Vanguard columnist narrated.

“I was taken to the creeks, middle of nowhere. They actually
told me I was in Cameroon. But I have been told that probably was not the
case.”

On the allegation in some quarters that her abduction could
have been politically motivated, Kogbara said though the kidnappers expressed
political sentiments in the creeks, no revelation came out of them. She added
that they code named politicians “official hoodlums”.

“I don’t see any politician behind the mask. I have to tell
you that these boys claimed they had helped certain politicians win elections
in the past but that is not what we can discuss here. I don’t know if you can
believe what they say.

“The political element was, em! They were a little bit
confused in my opinion, because they were upset that former President Goodluck
Jonathan had been defeated by a northerner, but, on the other hand, they were
also very unhappy with Goodluck (Jonathan) because they felt he had not done
much for the Niger Delta.

“I saw politics here and there. They had a grudge against a
former governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, for not supporting Goodluck
Jonathan but then they also had a grudge against the current governor.
Actually, in the end, they told me it was a war against big men; to them, big
men are politicians. They called them official hoodlums”.

Asked if the kidnappers were enlightened, she said some were
but most of them were not highly educated.

Again, Kogbara laughed as she responded to a question on how
they fed her.

“Their meal, it was not bad. Considering that they were
young men, they cooked rather well. But the conditions were not very sanitary”,
she said.

“Did they respect your medical condition in the choice of
meal?”, a journalist shot back.

“To be fair to them, when I complained of not having my
blood level medication, they actually went out and bought some for me. It was
much more complex than that.”

On how she was abducted, Kogbara said it was a story her
mother, Mrs. Ann Kogbara, will be in a better position to tell because she
(Donu) was dazed that morning when she suddenly saw strange men in her room.
“Honestly, I was so confused. I woke up in my bedroom to see men. My mother can
tell how many they were. Because, honestly, I was in a daze. They took me out,
blindfolded me and off we went”, she said.