In an emotion-laden voice, he recounted how he was hounded like a criminal right in the middle of his breakfast and made to trek in the forest for 10 hours, slept on bare floor for four days and the excruciating pains he suffered during his captivity.
Falae was narrating his ordeal in kidnappers den to Governor Olusegun Mimiko who visited him after he was rescued at about 4:14pm on Thursday.
He returned home to a tumultuous crowd who besieged his house located along Oba-Ile. On hand were Inspector General of Police Solomon Arase and top police chiefs in the state led by the Police Commissioner Mike Ogbodu who went with over 400 policemen to bring him back home after his captors released him.
Arase had landed in Akure, the Ondo State capital, in a police chopper marked 5N- ANS on Thursday on the directive of President Muhammadu Buhari that the elder statesman be rescued alive from his abductors.
The family of the politician, the presidential candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD)/ All Peoples Party (APP) in the 1999 general elections, had reportedly perfected his release on Wednesday before the arrival of the IGP in the state.
Eight gun welding herds men had allegedly invaded his farm, located at Ilado village in Akure North Council area of Ondo State on the day he clocked 77 , attacked and injured many of his over 200 workers and abducted their prime target at about 10:30am.
Falae was said to be taking his breakfast in his office located inside the farm when the kidnappers swooped on him and took him away. His abductors didn’t come in any vehicle and didn’t escape with him in any vehicle either. He was made to trek with them into the forest.
Only one of the kidnappers who, it was gathered, presumably knew him in person, wore mask while others were bare faced and armed with AK 47 rifles, cutlasses and cudgels .
Immediately the leader in mask saw him in the office, he reportedly ordered him to follow them and, while Falae questioned their identity, he was dealt a machete blow on his right hand leaving him to bleed profusely.
Falae, rescued on Thursday in Owo area of the state where he was dumped by his abductors, told Mimiko that he slept on bare floor in the forest for four days.
“ They made me to trek for several hours inside the forest on that Monday all through the night. Those that accompanied me were six in number,” the elder statesman said. .
“ After trekking for that long, we came out at Owo/ Ifon expressway. We trekked throughout the night.
“ To avoid security who may be searching for me, they changed locations four times daily.
“ I was offered food but I chose not to eat their food but only took bread and Coca-cola for the number of days I was in their captivity.”
Sunday Vanguard was told by a family member that they were informed by Falae that during the llong walk inside the forest, whenever he was tired, the six abductors took time to carry him on their back for him to regain his strength and then continue the journey.
He said that his kidnappers avoided the main road until they got to Owo.
It was learnt that the kidnappers reportedly hid their weapons at strategic places inside the forest and, while the six abductors accompanied the politician during the journey, two others, in a hideout, were making contact and negotiating with the family on the ransom to be paid.
The politician was said to have been having issues with herds men who had been invading his farmland with their cows to graze and destroy.
His abduction by the herds men was seen as a retaliation for the arrest of two of them detained after the last encounter over the invasion of the same farm last month.
Sunday Vanguard gathered that the herds men dropped Falae at Joyland Hotel, Owo where security operatives picked him and brought him to Akure.
It was gathered that the family and the security operatives had to appeal to the owner of the hotel to allow the politician make use of one the rooms in the hotel to change his dress.