Save my soul — 38-year-old woman cries out for help
A certain Mrs Oshidele Oluwanifemi Dorcas has summoned the courage to relay her close shave with death and her ordeal in the hands of kidnappers who had kept her in an uncompleted building for days in one surburb in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, with the intention of killing her after successfully retrieving from her the documents and properties of her dead father.
She, however, was full of praise to God and some men of the local vigilante group who had rescued her from her tormentors after a gun duel that lasted minutes.
“I still can’t believe I am alive… But I thank God.”
Those were the words of Mrs Oshidele Oluwanifemi Dorcas as she began narrating her travails in the hands of unknown hefty men suspected to be kidnappers believed to be acting on the orders of her stepmother.
Mrs Oshidele who is presently seeking refuge in an undisclosed private apartment in the Obafemi Owode local government area of Ogun State after having run for her dear life was all in tears when she was talking to reporters about her ordeal in the hands of the kidnappers and several unknown gunmen who had continually been on her trail for over two years.
Addressing questions from journalists, Mrs, Oshidele Oluwanifemi Dorcas (nee Sosina) who is the first born of a family of three stated that her predicament started sometime in February 2012 when some hoodlums brandishing guns, cudgels, and diabolical charms stormed her father’s residence at No.15 Lakan Aina close, Fajol Estate Obantoko, Abeokuta Ogun State shooting sporadically until they found and shot her father.
Recalling the sad incident as tears rolled down her cheeks, she said, “On the 7th of February 2012, I received a call from my younger brother that my father has been hospitalised after sustaining gunshot injuries during an attack at his residence by gunmen who had come after his life.
“Luckily enough, I met my dad alive and what he told me was shocking. He had authoritatively confirmed to me that his second wife (my stepmother) was behind the attack on him that she was bent on forcefully inheriting all that he had laboured for all his life. He warned me sternly to be very careful and to be on my heels as he suspects that I will be the next target of the gunmen since everyone in the family is aware that the documents to all the property is in my custody.
“Unfortunately, those were the last moments of my dad as he gave up the ghost minutes after.”
Several attempts, according to her, in testament to her father’s observation, were made by some strange faces to hack her down and kidnap her which forced her to seek exile in the country’s capital abandoning her residence in Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital.
In her words, “Calls upon calls kept on coming in that I should surrender all the documents of my father’s property or I risk been murdered in cold blood, hence.
“My relocation to Abuja to stay with a family friend with my son happened when I couldn’t bear the threat any longer.”
Oluwanifemi continued, “My husband had to run for his dear life abandoning the child and me, after complaining bitterly about the strange and weird calls of threat to life from unknown persons.”
Recounting her ordeal further, Oluwanifemi revealed, “It wasn’t easy for me to abandon my belongings, contacts and job to seek refuge in a totally different environment. So tense was the situation that I couldn’t even attend the final burial rites of my dad when it was time for his internment for fear of been killed.”
In a copy of the police report made available to this reporter, as well as the affidavit deposed to, Mrs Oshidele Oluwanifemi is seeking the help of relevant institutions and authorities, the state and federal government to come to her aid and deliver her household from her assailant.
