•After praying, my chains broke loose, guards slept off, and doors became unlocked

Romanus Okoye

Chief Donatus Dunu, managing director of Maybon Pharmaceuticals Nigeria Limited, recently recounted how he was divinely rescued from a den of kidnappers in Lagos. He also narrated his ordeal in the hands of the deadly gang allegedly led by Chukwudubem Onwuamadike, popularly known as Evans.

Dunu, while narrating his miraculous escape at the Lagos High Court, Ikeja, on Friday, said the kidnappers had set aside a day to kill him. But, according to him, a day before the scheduled date, he prayed and the chains on his legs, the kitchen door and protector locks were inexplicably unlocked. He said he quickly found his way to the outer compound where a ladder had been placed on the wall by some mysterious force. He thereafter escaped after 88 days in captivity.

“It was only God who rescued me from their hands,” the businessman declared.

He spoke further: “I closed from work in my office in Ilupeju area of Lagos around 7:30pm, when an SUV suddenly double-crossed me. I wanted to reverse but could not. A man came down from the car and pointed a long gun at me. He dragged me down and pushed me into the boot of their car and covered it.

“I found myself in their den, blindfolded for several days. I clearly remember during an interaction on phone with their chairman, Evans, that he warned me to cooperate with them or be killed, that it was only God that could save me from their hands and no man would ever find me even if they killed me.

“So when the negotiations for ransom appeared deadlocked, I overheard one of the kidnappers telling others that the best option was to kill me since my brothers were not acting fast in meeting their demands. I knew the end had come. 

“From that day, I decided not to eat or drink anything they gave me so that they would not poison me. But one of them warned me that I should eat so I could stand the rigours of the bath they were going to give me at the canal. That was where they killed their victims.

“I could hear most of their discussions because the room where they kept me was like the master bedroom, very close to the parlour where they stayed. Two of them had heavy Igbo accent. One, called Uche, spoke with Imo accent, while the other, called Adebayo, still at large, spoke with an unmistakable Anambra accent. 

“My escape was in Easter period, during the Passion week. Before they started planning to kill me, their chairman, Evans, demanded $2 million but later reduced it to $1 million. And later again, he changed it to €1 million. He said he had received more information about me and realised that I had so much money. Before then, he had asked me to give him my relatives’ phone numbers and I gave him my brother’s number. He even asked me about my children and I told him that they were still very young, that the eldest one was just 14 years.  

“So each time he spoke with my brother, he would make it like a telephone conference and I could hear them. And they would always torture me, so that my brother could hear. The negotiations continued till he insisted on collecting €250,000 but my family could only raise €223,000. At a time when naira appreciated, he said he wanted it in naira but later reversed to euros. I begged them to collect the one my family had raised, that I would raise the balance if they released me. But they refused.

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“That was when they concluded to kill me. They showed me different and many dangerous weapons. I was terribly scared the more. I did not know that my family had paid the €223,000. But they still wanted more.

“So, in the midnight of Thursday, before the Friday they had scheduled to kill me, I prayed and something told me to wrap the bedspread in the room where they kept me, round the shackles on my legs, the chains were like the one used to chain mad people. When I did, I observed that the padlocks opened up. It was like being in a dream. I looked round the room and decided to escape. I knew that, by Friday, the next day, they would kill me as planned. And if I tried to escape and they caught me, they would still kill me. So I decided to take the risk. I got to the parlour and saw the one guarding me deeply in sleep on a three-seater couch. I tiptoed and touched the kitchen door leading to the backyard and found it open but there was a protector. 

“On a closer look, I observed that the protector was locked at the centre, so I pushed the lower side apart and it was loose enough to let me pass.  And I eased my way through it.

“Still like a miracle, I found a ladder in the compound placed on the wall where pieces of broken bottles used for security on the fence were not much. So I climbed it and it aided my escape into the next compound, though with bruises. 

“While I was inside the detention room, I knew the days of the week through a Celestial church near the kidnappers’ den; when they talked in the church.”

Dunu further told the court, presided over by Hon. Justice Hakeem Oshodi, that the kidnappers’ den was situated somewhere in Igando, Lagos.

“On the day I jumped into the next compound, which was also a bungalow like the one I was kept, I sustained injuries and I was looking very unkempt and haggard. I had not shaved for 88 days. And the shirt I wore was the singlet that they used in blindfolding me. The couple I jumped into their compound were visibly scared. They threatened to call security in the street or the police. I told them to call the police. When they were about to do that, electricity went off and they abandoned me and went back to sleep. 

“At that time, I realized that the kidnappers had started looking for me. So I hid somewhere till morning. The couple woke up to see me. I begged them to put me in the boot of their car and get me out of the place but they decided to call the chairman of the street. As they went to do that, a young man of about 24 years old, living in the compound, saw me and said I was a thief. He flogged and chased me out of the compound. I got to a nursery school around the kidnappers’ den and the corporate guards there didn’t still believe my story. They even pushed me down.

“Somehow, another man who listened to my story decided to call my wife and cousin when I gave him their numbers. It was my cousin’s own that connected and they spoke. It was after then that the man then believed that I was not a thief. He took me to Idimu Police Station. Then Ilupeju Police Station, where my brothers initially lodged a complaint after my abduction, was contacted. From there, we went to Anti-Cultism and Kidnap unit in Surulere and to the Lagos State Police Commissioner’s Office, from where all us went to the kidnappers’ den. 

“The man that helped me knew the area very well, but he did not know the particular house that the kidnappers used. But I could trace the house once we got to the street. So we all went there and found the gates locked. The police broke into the place and discovered a cache of ammunition. I showed them my room and demonstrated how I escaped.

“Thereafter, I was taken to a house in Lagos, where I saw Evans and the second defendant. Also, at Agege Police Station, I saw the fourth defendant, known as Congo, who is from my hometown. At the meetings, they pleaded that I should forgive them that it was the devil that pushed them.”

The defendants charged with conspiracy and kidnapping include Evans, Uche Amadi, Okwuchukwu Nwachukwu, Ogechi Uchechukwu, Chilaka Ifeanyi and Victor Chukwunonso Aduba. Evans and Aduba are also separately facing trial for conspiracy and murder.