How undergraduate survived ritualists’ hammer
From PAUL ORUDE, Bauchi
Thursday, May 7, 2009
When Ayuba Musa, an undergraduate of the Kano State University of Science and Technology, Wudil, was reading for a test on Thursday April 30, 2009, the only thing preoccupying his mind then was how to pass the paper well.





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While he was busy trying to ensure that, little did he know that evil men were lurking around the corner in the town, home to Nigeria’s foremost Police Academy, waiting to take his soul.

Around 8:00 in the night, the 100 level Civil Engineering student started feeling feverish perhaps after hours of reading.

Musa decided it won’t be a bad idea if he went home to rest in view of his illness.

But he couldn’t reach his destination at Tarauni where he lived with his uncle as powerful forces of men of the dark; men who kill fellow men for money snatched him.

Musa, 23, found himself in Bauchi, Bauchi State capital, about three hours.

Later blindfolded by his captors who dumped him around the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Stadium, at the heart of the town, the young man had no idea where he was taken to.

He succumbed to nature and drifted into sleep, the thin line between life and death.

Musa woke up the next day and found himself blindfolded. He removed the piece of black cloth used to blind-fold him by his captors. He wasn’t in Kano; he was in a strange city.

As he was hit by the rays of the early morning sunshine, Musa gradually began to recollect his memories.When he eventually came to his senses, Musa had lost the ability to speak.

He found to his dismay that his tongue seemed to have been glued mysteriously to his mouth.

It was in this confused state that the men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) who were on patrol saw an apparently helpless Musa.

The Public Relations Officer of the Bauchi State command of the NSCDC, Mr Paul Odimba said his men became curious to find an adult wandering about with no direction.

“Our men found him around 9 this morning (Friday May 1). Our men are on 24 hours surveillance of public infrastructure. It was during one of such checks that we found him loitering about and brought him to the command’s office,” he said.

Musa, who could hear but couldn’t speak, wrote his encounter with the people who he suspected were ritualists during an encounter with Daily Sun.

“I found myself with unknown group of three men yesterday (Thursday.) I was coming out from the school campus. I had already walked from the school when I was about to cross the road, then I saw the group of men and before I could get to where they were, they called me and said ‘you what is that your name come here.’ One of them asked what my name was. Before I could answer, another said my name is Musa that my daddy works with MTN Nigeria. That my daddy said that they should bring me home since I was not feeling fine.

“When I heard that of my health I thought it was true but I still didn’t want to enter the motor. They now held my hand and pushed me inside their motor and tied my face and hand. The next place I found myself was inside a very big house in a bush where I heard the voice of a woman asking me how old I was. I told her I am 23 years old. She then started shouting on her boys that she asked them to go and get the boy of 20 years and they went and brought the one of 23 years. That they should inject me and let me go”

Musa explained that after being injected with a substance, he was abandoned in Bauchi until the men of the NSCDC found him the next day.

The men of the NSCDC called Musa’s father and uncle who were shocked to hear about what happened to the young man.

His uncle, based in Kano, Salihi Tijanni said he and his wife were worried when they did not hear from Musa and was in Wudil Friday morning to see him at school when he received a phone call from the father, explaining what happened.

“Musa called my wife on Thursday that he was not feeling fine and she told him to come home. So when the father told me, I was already in Wudil and so I decided to proceed to Bauchi to see Musa.”

Tijanni, a teacher with San-Koree International School, Tarauni, said that although his nephew couldn’t speak for now, he was happy that he was alive.

Expressing his gratitude to God and the men of the NSCDC, Tijanni who brought Musa up, was optimistic that Musa would talk again.

Odimba said what happened to Musa was not longer strange in the society we live today and advised parents to be more careful with their children and discourage the habit of following strangers.

Odimba urged members of the public to always come with useful information that would help the NSCDC in their activities and promised that such information would be treated with utmost confidentiality.

http://odili.net/news/source/2009/may/7/502.html