Assistant Editor of Tribune,
Sam Nwaoko reports the story of 10-year-old Damilola Isaac who was kidnapped
for about 10 hours on May 31, 2012, her experience and miraculous escape.
SHE told her
story with almost meaningless simplicity. What she told of her experience at a
thanksgiving service at their branch of Christ Life Church, Adabol Area in
Bashorun, Ibadan, the Oyo State capital could be taken with a pinch of salt
because she just ran through it, and went back to her seat. It was obvious she
did not know the weight of what she just talked about, nor did she know the
enormity of the miracle she had turned out to be.
Oluwadamilola
Isaac, more commonly called 'Damilola or 'Dammy' went to school as usual at
C&S New Eden Primary School, Oju Irin, Bodija, Ibadan on the fateful day
and her parents, as usual, expected her back at home around 2 to 2:30 in the
afternoon. But at 3 O' clock, her mother called to notify her father of the
unusual: “Dammy has not returned from school.” Her father, Isaac Ajanaku said
his immediate reaction was “why?” But he sensed danger and swung into action.
Isaac said he
called all the people he could possibly call, including all the clerics he knew
to report the matter and had even gone to a police station to report the
development. Before these, he had gone to the school where he made enquiries
about the day's activities and the possibility that Dammy might have decided to
walk home with her friends.
According to
Ajanaku, “the Headmistress took me to some of her classmates with whom she left
the school. But those ones explained that she boarded a taxi at the Oju-Irin
taxi park where they load Ashi/Bashorun and that they all parted ways from
there.” He said at the garage, there was little he could do because the picture
the relevant authorities there painted was that his daughter might have gone
playing and would soon return home.
At the Railway
Police Station in Bodija, Ajanaku said he was advised to also go to the Central
Police Station at Iyaganku so that a radio message would be relayed on the
matter. “I did all those and even went as far as composing with the police
officers at Iyaganku, the message to be aired in the broadcast media. Then, it
began to dawn on me that we were talking about my daughter.”
Meanwhile, he
said they had formed prayer bands in church and at home to also “fight for her
on the spiritual front”, while people inundated them with telephone calls to
find out if Dammy had returned home. The search went all day with the enormous psychological
burden on him, his wife and Dammy's siblings. “When we were left alone at home
and we held hands to pray as a family, the absence of Dammy became pronounced
and my other daughter, Peace, and my wife broke down in tears,” Ajanaku
recalled.
At about eleven
that night, Isaac said he got a call from a strange number. “The voice on the
other side asked if I was Mr Isaac Ajanaku and said it was calling from New
Gbagi Police Station. It then went off.” He said he called the number back and
he confirmed that he was Isaac. “Then, the voice said 'your daughter is with us
at the New Gbagi Police Station. She was brought to our station around 11p.m.'
I worked hard to conceal my joy from my wife so as to get further confirmation
by, at least speaking with our daughter on the telephone. After I spoke with
her, then I told my wife that Dammy had been found!”
Isaac said he
subtly probed his daughter when they arrived at the police station the next
morning. He reiterated that even though Dammy was not new to the Ashi/Bashorun
route, he had to find out if she had hopped into just any vehicle she saw on
the road against daily advice. “I asked her why she did not board a painted
taxi on the turn but a bus and she insisted that it was a taxi she boarded and
that it was the usual painted taxi. I also asked why she refused to speak up
when she arrived at our bus stop and she said she was slapped and beaten by two
men in front of the taxi when she raised her voice as they drove past the bus
stop,” he stated.
that the vehicle
that drove them away was a painted taxi. "How many of you," was the
next question and she said “there were two girls already in the taxi when I
joined them at the back seat,” adding “two men sat in the front seat and then,
the driver.”
Damilola with her father
Narrating
her experience further, Dammy said, “when we got to our bus stop, I told them
to stop but the driver would not listen to me. I began to shout and one of the
men in the front turned and slapped me so hard and shouted that I should shut
up. I then began to cry.” She said the man that slapped her brought out a
miniature gourd and dabbed the forehead of the other girls who, she said, had
remained somewhat dumb all along.
Dammy said: “They
drove to the expressway through Ashi and were just driving. I did not know any
of the places they drove through but they were far and it the road that leads
towards the compound, they pushed me out of the car and drove off with the
other children.
Dammy told the
Nigerian Tribune was getting dark. I was just crying. Later they stopped
somewhere on the road in the jungle. I saw a house with white and red curtains
ahead… the type we see in films. As they were making to join the road that
leads towards the compound, they pushed me out of the car and drove off with
the other children.
“I still had my
school bag and lunchbox. I picked my things and started walking back. I didn't
know where the road would lead and it was dark. I later arrived at another road
and I saw a few houses. I also saw a small girl go into a compound with a gate
so, I decided to go there. Since the gate had been locked, I laid down at the
foot of the wall of the house until a car's headlights fell on me.
“The man who was
driving the car asked who I was and where I was coming from. He called members
of his household and they all observed that my school uniform was strange to
their community. I told them my name and what happened as I was coming from
Bodija and going to Ashi. The man now took me to the police station that
night.”
Ajanaku said the
good Samaritan who brought his daughter to the police station in New Gbagi
found her at Olode area of Ibadan suburbs. "This is not just disturbing,
it is frightening because I cannot just imagine what would have happened to the
girl overnight all alone in the bush and how she would have found her way
home."
Ajanaku said his
worry was further heightened by how a taxi could take people away from a garage
headed by some people and minutes later, both the passengers and the cab that
took them away could not be accounted for? “What would be the fate of the other
children and how much of this would be allowed to go on in vast and highly
populated Ibadan? I think the Ashi/Bodija Taxi Unit of the National Union of
Road Transport Workers (NURTW) should answer some questions. I hope the
relevant security agencies are in on this."
At a thanksgiving
service thereafter, the parents of 'Damilola described their ordeal but
attributed the victory to “God who answers prayers.” Ajanaku said, “this is a
victory for God and all His servants, especially for the Christ Life Church
family worldwide.” It was, however double celebration as the family had earlier
planned to dedicate their new twins to God that thanksgiving day.