Abduction Survivor Talks About Her Journey Towards Recovery

*Grace was 21 years old when she was abducted at her home in Jos, North-Central Nigeria. The incident happened in the dead of the night sometime in December 2020. The abductors — about five of them fully armed — broke into the house through the living room window to whisk her away. 

While she was trying to come to terms with the situation, Grace was dragged out of the house in her nightwear. She was brought into one of the cars parked outside. The rest of the abductors got into the other car and sped after the vehicle that took her. 

“They didn’t blindfold me or tie me up. They just placed me inside the car with them like a passenger and drove away,” she said.

Shocked and terrified, Grace regained consciousness in the moving vehicle, in the hands of a criminal gang giving her orders. The vehicle stopped after driving for hours, and the kidnappers told her to be ready for a long foot journey.

They trekked until she almost lost her breath; the fear of getting hit once she slowed down forced her to keep moving for hours. Some of the abductors stood in front to lead the way while she was placed behind them and the rest followed in a single file. As they walked farther into the forest that night, Grace walked after her captors quietly until her feet started to hurt.

She stopped walking abruptly.

“They kept telling me to walk fast and when I slowed down, there was a little beating here and there,”  she said. By the time they arrived at their destination, her feet had swollen, and she had been completely exhausted. “I was forced to climb a mountain, and when we got to the hilltop, they told me they had arrived at their destination.”

It was at that point she realised she had just become a victim of abduction. She wept bitterly, hoping that someone had seen the abductors while they were dragging her into the forest. She passed the night on the mountaintop immersed in a cosy night till cockrow.  She had heard stories of women raped by their abductors; the thought of being the only woman among a gang of men scared her.

The following day, she heard the voices of ordinary people down the mountain and felt like “screaming for help, but I was so terrified”. Later that day, the abductors spoke to her in Hausa to request a family contact. They contacted her uncle to demand a ₦5 million ransom, but after a series of negotiations — which lasted for several hours — her family paid ₦1 million.

From day to dawn, they didn’t offer her a drop of water or food, but that wasn’t her problem at the time; the fear of getting severely beaten and raped clouded her mind, she said.

“The money was to be delivered in cash at a certain junction where one of their men would pick it, and if they involved the police, then I would be killed,” she told HumAngle.

For her safety, Grace revealed that her family didn’t involve the police in the rescue process. An elder in the family was assigned to deliver the money in cash. The man delivered the ransom at the junction around 6 p.m. and waited for her release.

When the cash was brought to the mountaintop, the abductors took Grace down the hill, placed her inside a car and drove her to the junction where a family member was waiting to secure her freedom. She would soon be free, as her family representative drove her away from the kidnapper’s den and took her home.

Family and friends rejoiced when Grace regained her freedom, but her torturous emotional journey had only just begun. She now had some abnormal feelings of fear and insecurity; she shunned the people around her, especially when they asked for the details of her experience in captivity.

She was now free, but a lot was wrong with her. She stopped going out, choosing to stay alone most of the time, and decried seeing people around her. She had a sleeping problem and reacted hypersensitively to human activities around her.

“I became more sensitive to noise even when I’m asleep,” she said. “I can be asleep but practically hear the slightest noise and then wake up in fear.”

How did Grace bail herself out of this seeming post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?

“I got enrolled in an online counselling session and it lasted for long till I started to let go of my fears. I also got a lot of support from loved ones and I had to remind myself that being kidnapped wasn’t my fault,” she said. 

According to a report by the American Psychological Association (APA), survivors of abduction like Grace need help to adjust to their normal life after regaining freedom. The report admonished hostage survivors to seek help from a licensed mental health professional, especially if there are chronic indications of stress and disturbed sleep — as Grace exhibited.

Sendi Danjuma, a social psychologist HumAngle contacted, explained that people who regain freedom after abduction tend to withdraw and avoid family and friends. She also said that reintegrating into society has its challenges after being kidnapped. 

“Transitioning from conditions of isolation and hopelessness, impaired memory, fear of the event happening again, overcautiousness or being paranoid are some of the challenges,” Sendi told HumAngle, noting that some of the mental disorders that hostage survivors could manifest are post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety or panic attacks and sleep disorders.

“Being kidnapped is a traumatic experience, and the experience may manifest through how survivors think or behave,” she added and counselled survivors like Grace to engage in physical activities and have a support system. “They can also practice mindfulness and adapt to positive thinking.”

For Grace, the online counselling sessions with the mental health expert worked over time with the support she got from family and friends who had to stop bringing up discussions about her abduction. After a series of counselling sessions, she began to go out more often than she would have done in the past. However, she now hardly trusts people around her and, “I’m careful who is in my space; I’m no longer as open as I used to be.” 

Kidnapping for ransom has become a yielding trade for criminal gangs in Nigeria. SBM Intelligence, a socio-political risk consultancy firm, reports that economic hardship, high inflation, and a struggling economy are the main reasons for kidnappings in the country. 

Between July 2022 and June 2023, 3,620 people were abducted in 582 kidnap-related incidents in Nigeria and at least ₦5 billion ($6,410,256 as of 30 June 2023) was collected as ransom demands, while verified ransom payouts amounted to ₦302 million ($387,179), or six per cent of what was demanded, the organisation stated in another report.

Grace calls on people to stop blaming kidnap victims for their misfortune. 

“You will hear people saying that those who were kidnapped shouldn’t have travelled or stayed in such environments. I believe if you can’t help with the recovery process, please keep mute,” she charged.