Sometime ago, I met a man through a mutual friend—a respected pastor with a popular church in Abuja. We connected almost immediately and became good friends.
When my family visited me in Abuja a few months ago, we visited him at his home in a developing estate around Pyakasa Lugbe, Abuja. He was among the first few residents to complete and move into their houses. It was a beautiful duplex with an adjoining bungalow he had built for tenants.
As we discussed family life that day, he passionately argued against spouses living apart.
“I can’t stay one month away from my wife and children,” he told me.
He was particularly concerned about the nature of my job, which often keeps me away from my family. He strongly advised me to relocate them to Abuja and even offered me the bungalow he had built for tenants so my family could live close to me. I declined.
I explained that my postings were unpredictable, and relocating my family every few years across the country was not practical—such a kind, practical, family-oriented man.
That conversation stayed with me.
Then, a few months ago, one night my phone rang around 2 a.m. It was my friend calling. What could make a pastor call me by midnight?
His voice was trembling. Between frantic breaths and panic, he managed to tell me that armed bandits had invaded their estate. I heard gunshots and large bangs from the phone.
“We are under attack… please call soldiers… police… anybody…” The line went dead.
Every attempt to reach him afterwards failed. By morning, I rode up to Lugbe to his place. Armed bandits had overrun the estate.
One of the estate security men was shot dead, and others ran away. I remembered the day I visited him with my family. I saw the estate security men; they were armed with what looked like Dane guns.
My friend’s home was breached. His only daughter, about 17 years old, was kidnapped. All other residential buildings in the estate had their gates breached and their home doors (all security doors) partially damaged, but the only one the invaders gained access to was my friend’s. It was as if they were intent on getting to his home by any means.
What followed was one of the most traumatic experiences any family could endure.
For days, the family lived in agony. There were negotiations, threats, sleepless nights, and desperate prayers.
Through the help of a DSS friend who risked his career by using some kind of official technology for what he described as a “private case,” the kidnappers’ location was eventually traced to the forests around Kabusa.
The information was passed to the police station within Pyakasa and Kabusa, which had been on the case. Nothing happened.
There were fears that any rescue attempt could provoke the kidnappers into harming the girl. One day, during negotiations, they told my friend that a military vehicle had entered his estate, that if he tried anything funny, his daughter was gone forever.
The family had no choice but to continue negotiating. The kidnappers initially demanded ₦50 million. Eventually, they reduced it to ₦20 million.
Friends, church members, and well-wishers rallied around the family. Together, they raised the money. The ransom was dropped at a designated spot on the airport road around 1 am with severe warning that the girl being killed is a security threat. Evidence of how entrenched the bandits were within the general area.
The girl was finally released and picked up by a Kabusa lonely road around 4 am the night after the criminals had received and confirmed the ransom.
But the ordeal did not end there. The entire estate became a ghost town. Families abandoned houses they had spent their life savings building. My pastor friend and his family fled as well.
Today, they live in an overpriced rented two-bedroom apartment closer to the city centre, where there is seemingly better security. He automatically moved from being a landlord to a tenant in the twinkle of an eye.
The beautiful home he once proudly showed me now stands empty. And the deepest scars are not on the walls that were broken into. They are in the minds of those who survived.
His wife nearly suffered a mental breakdown. The trauma of watching her only daughter being taken away at gunpoint still haunts her.
The last time I saw him, he still told me that the same kidnapping gang had attacked many adjoining estates around his, and residents had been kidnapped and ransom paid, and many families had run away from the area.
This is true life story, it is not in the past.
It is happening.
~ Ichie Chukwuebuka.
