The kidnapped but now freed State Chairman of the Edo State chapter of the Independent Petroleum Marketers of Nigerian (IPMAN), Alhaji Abdul-Hamid Egele, has called on Nigerians to come together to salvage the country from its present challenges.
Egele, who was kidnapped on Monday, February 7, at his Jattu, Etsako West Local Government Area, home at about 7 pm, was released on Thursday last week, 11 days after his abduction and after his family paid a ransom of N70m in Kaduna State.
Speaking with newsmen in Benin on Sunday, Egele appealed to the people not to shy away from going home as doing so would not solve the issue of kidnapping and the problem of insecurity.
“I want to advise the people not to be discouraged and running away from home, we must come together in prayers and savage the country together.
“I have discovered that Police and Army in the whole world cannot solve what is happening together, but Almighty Allah,” he stated.
Egele who narrated his ordeal in the hands of his abductors said he ate a piece of apple on each day of the 11days he spent in the forest with his abductors.
“Though I was offered food every day but I told them I was not hungry but only requested for apple which they gave me one each day of the period I spent with them in the forest.
“It was the day I heard I was going to be released that I demanded a tin of milk; they obliged me with pap.
I needed it for strength because I knew I was going to trek long distance upon my release,” he said.
He commended his well-wishers and Muslim clerics who all prayed for his safe return.
During the abduction, his driver and police orderly were killed by the gunmen who had trailed him to his house.