Comedian Odey Mathias, popularly known as General Odey, has shared the harrowing story of spending 50 days in kidnappers’ custody.
Speaking on Channels TV’s The Morning Brief on Thursday, he described the ordeal as “horrible and unimaginable, something I would not even wish on my enemy.”
Armed men abducted Mathias and 23 others on 18 April 2025 while they travelled to Calabar via the Oron/Uyo waterways. The kidnappers fired gunshots, rammed their boat with a larger one, and forced them onto another vessel. For 40 minutes, they were driven to an unknown location.
Mathias revealed he remained in captivity far longer than others because the kidnappers mistook his military-style uniform as a sign of high status. During detention, the gang beat, starved, and forbade them from looking directly at their faces. Anyone who did was struck.
He said the kidnappers operated from a creek settlement that resembled a community, where they played loud music, fired weapons, and took victims to spots with phone signals to demand ransom. Unlike others, he was rarely allowed to contact his family and only spoke to his wife twice.
According to him, his family worked with security agencies to trace his location, which led the kidnappers to demand further payment after receiving the first ransom.
“When I was released, I learnt that my family had already paid over ₦3 million. But the kidnappers refused to let me go and demanded more. Eventually, they collected a total of about ₦8 million before I regained freedom,” Mathias explained.