David Obiorah, one of the six Nigerian Law School students recently kidnapped in Benue State, has shared a chilling account of the torment he faced while in captivity, exposing the cruelty of his abductors and the failure of authorities to rescue them.
Obiorah described how he and five fellow students were ambushed on their way to the Nigerian Law School campus in Yola. The incident occurred on July 26, 2025, as their vehicle passed through the Benue-Taraba border.
“Our bus was forced off the road and driven deep into the forest. At that moment, we all thought we were going to be killed,” Obiorah recounted. But what followed was days of relentless torture rather than immediate death.
Obiorah revealed that their captors, suspected to be local bandits communicating in Tiv, held them in a remote forest settlement, where they were flogged daily with tree branches. The students were fed once a day with poorly cooked rice mixed with palm oil, and were forced to drink muddy water.
“The rice looked like mashed amala soaked in red oil. Drinking dirty water was the only option. The beatings never stopped,” he painfully narrated.
Despite the Benue State Police Command claiming the students were rescued by security operatives, Obiorah debunked this narrative. “No one rescued us. Not the police, not the Law School. Each of us had to pay N10 million for our release,” he stated firmly.
Interestingly, one of the students was freed earlier without ransom, which Obiorah attributed to his youthful appearance. “They said he looked like a minor because of his baby face and let him go,” he said.
He further disclosed that the kidnappers’ vehicle broke down after the abduction, leading them to use motorcycles to ferry the victims deeper into the bush. By the time they reached their hideout, the students discovered four other hostages, including a female victim who was isolated in a separate hut with the gang leader, identified as “Matthew.”
“Matthew acted like a soldier. His posture, his tone, everything suggested military training,” Obiorah said.
He described the hideout as a rural settlement where the locals seemed complicit. “Women in the village cooked for us. Children would come out to stare whenever we were brought outside. Everyone knew we were being held there, but no one said a word,” he revealed.
Obiorah’s harrowing experience underscores the growing crisis of kidnappings-for-ransom in Nigeria, particularly in the northern regions, where criminal gangs operate with seeming impunity, often aided by local communities.