The kidnapped General of the Nigeria Army, Peter Ademokhai (retd), who was seized from his farm in Benin, was released early Saturday after alleged payment of an undisclosed ransom, SUNDAY PUNCH correspondent has reported.
Though Ademokhai refused to disclose the amount paid to his kidnappers during an interview with SUNDAY PUNCH shortly after his release, our correspondent said the abductors demanded N100million in exchange for the General‘s freedom.
The former General Officer Commanding the First Mechanised Division in Kaduna, was kidnapped on Thursday by a gang of daredevil gunmen who stormed his private farm at Ovia North East Local Government Area of Edo State in his farm.
He told our correspondent at his residence at Central Road, GRA, Benin City, that he was seized in the presence of his wife by nine young men who claimed to be Niger Delta militants.
The retired General, who played host to large crowd of guests, including top security personnel and clergymen who besieged his house immediately after he was set free, said the kidnappers also wanted to take away his wife but for his argument that it was not wise to do so since it was the woman who would negotiate with the abductors for his release.
Ademokhai said that he was traumatized and felt as if he was living in a failed state not different from Somalia where bandits could lay their hands on guns and dangerous weapons to kidnap people just to make money.
He said that it was saddening that after having served this country for about 50 years, 27 in the Army and 21 after retirement, a group of young Nigerians could subject him to such a treatment on retirement.
However, Ademokhai said that his abductors were very nice to him as they addressed him as ”daddy” even as he called them ”my children”, stressing that he did not have any hatred for them but the system which produced them.
”I feel as if I live in Somalia because that is a failed state where people can just carry guns to do anything. I don‘t hate my abductors; I only hate the system that produced them. They were nice to me, they are my sons, and they called me daddy.
”I hate the system that makes young men to go about harassing people like me, doing their lawful businesses in their offices, I mean somebody like me, with guns.
”They even said they did not like what they were doing, that they were driven into it by a system that did not create a space for them. One of the kidnappers even said he had N60 million in his account.
”I mean, that is not the kind of money you sweep under the rug in your house. And this morning I asked the bank manager if they were not supposed to be alerting security agencies if somebody pays amount running into millions of Naira into an account in order to know the source, and he said they were doing so. So it is the system,” he said