FORMER finance minister and secretary to the federal government Chief Olu Falae has revealed that the kidnappers who recently abducted him warned that they would return should he reveal any details about their operations.  

Speaking after his release last week, Chief Falae, 77, who was abducted from his farm near the Ondo State capital Akure, said he was starved, made to trek kilometres and forced to sleep on leaves while it rained. He was kidnapped on his birthday by six Fulani herdsmen last Monday, who threatened to kill him every 30 minutes, until they received information that the ransom had been paid. 

Although Chief Falae did not state how much was paid to the abductors, who initially asked for N100m (£328,000), which they reduced to N90m (£295,000), his family was said to have paid a huge ransom for his release. One dependable source said that eventually, N5m  was paid as a ransom before Chief Falae was released. 

Chief Falae said: “There were six of them with three or four guns and every half an hour or so they would say, Baba we are going to kill you, if you don’t give us money we are going to kill you. On Wednesday, one of them said we are leaving here on Thursday morning and since we cannot leave you here alone, if we don’t get what we want we are going to kill you.

 “They said they gave me until 3pm but I thank God that at 21 minutes before 3pm, one of them came and said the money don complete. When the hoodlums came, they slashed me with their cutlasses and they dragged me barefoot into the bush but after dragging me around for about two hours, they stopped somewhere for us to rest and there they asked me to phone my wife and tell her that I have been kidnapped and taken out of Ondo State, which was a lie." 

He added that at about 2.30pm on Monday, they started walking with very few stops until 2am the following morning, covering a minimum of 15km. All day, he had no food, water, shoes and his clothes were torn but later on, one of the kidnappers gave him a pair of slippers before they called for a motorcycle. 

According to Chief Falae, the motorcyclist took him away and he had no clue where they were going but finally, they dumped him somewhere, where he was, until released on Thursday. He added that they were changing locations two to three times a day to prevent the police from tracing them. 

“By the way, one of them told me Baba, if after you leave us you talk nonsense I will come and catch you again. Only two of them could speak some English and they were between 25 and 35 and they were Fulani but they spoke Hausa,” Chief Falae added. 

He said it was likely his ordeal was closely connected to his conflict with Fulani herdsmen, who consistently grazed on his farm. The cattle herders have been giving him a hard time for the past two or three years because he has a dam on the farm, so they like to bring their cattle there to drink water who then eat his crops.