{"id":72114,"date":"2025-08-05T14:45:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T14:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=72114"},"modified":"2025-08-05T14:45:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T14:45:15","slug":"kidnappers-spoke-tiv-not-fulani-says-freed-law-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/08\/05\/kidnappers-spoke-tiv-not-fulani-says-freed-law-student\/","title":{"rendered":"Kidnappers Spoke Tiv, Not Fulani, Says Freed Law Student"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adenike Lawal<\/strong><\/p>\n

David Obiora, a Nigerian Law School student from the Yola Campus, has revealed that his recent abductors were Tiv-speaking men, not Fulani, as earlier reports claimed.<\/p>\n

Obiora was one of six students kidnapped on July 26, 2025, while traveling from Onitsha to Yola.<\/p>\n

In a WhatsApp interview with Vanguard, he contradicted police claims that they were rescued, insisting they were freed after each paid \u20a610 million in ransom.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were not rescued. We were released after paying \u20a610 million each,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The abduction happened around 9 p.m. along the Zakibiam-Mukari Expressway near Jootar in Benue State.<\/p>\n

Obiora said ten armed men, four with AK-47s and others with machetes and daggers ambushed their company vehicle and drove them into a forest where it eventually got stuck.<\/p>\n

Reinforcements later arrived on motorcycles and led the victims deeper into the bush.<\/p>\n

There, they joined four earlier captives: a university staff member, a corps member, a recovering pastor, and another unidentified man.<\/p>\n

Obiora said the kidnappers, who spoke fluent Tiv and knew the area well, operated openly and confidently.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir leader, Matthew, is either a former soldier or a deserter. The whole community seems to be under their control; no one reports them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Although there were a few silent Fulani among the group, Obiora said the primary language spoken was Tiv.<\/p>\n

The victims, he said, were held in harsh conditions, eating only once a day and drinking dirty water.<\/p>\n

One abductor named David claimed he had been in the kidnapping business for nearly 10 years and used his proceeds to buy cars for his wife and pay school fees for his children.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he couldn\u2019t go home because he\u2019s a marked man,\u201d Obiora recalled.<\/p>\n

The gang leader, Matthew, allegedly believed he had spiritual protection from a \u201cjuju man\u201d in Kano and could not be killed by soldiers unless \u201cordained by God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obiora admitted that, like many, he initially assumed the attackers were Fulani, but quickly realized otherwise from their dialect and appearance.<\/p>\n

After six days in captivity, the hostages were released and made to trek through the forest to Taraba State. They later found shelter at a roadside restaurant near a motor park before continuing their journey to Yola with help from a transport company official.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adenike Lawal David Obiora, a Nigerian Law School student from the Yola Campus, has revealed that his recent abductors were Tiv-speaking men, not Fulani, as earlier reports claimed. Obiora was one of six students kidnapped on July 26, 2025, while traveling from Onitsha to Yola. In a WhatsApp interview with Vanguard, he contradicted police […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":72115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72116,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72114\/revisions\/72116"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}