A prospective member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), who was abducted in Imo State, has recounted how she and other victims were beaten, threatened and forced to survive on garri and dirty water while being held captive in a forest.
The victim spoke in an interview with the BBC following the abduction of 20 prospective corps members and another passenger travelling to their NYSC orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
She said their captors monitored phone calls to their families and assaulted those whose conversations displeased them, using weapons and their bare hands.
“We are given a phone to call our family, and if any family say anything they don’t want to hear or any rubbish that would make them angry, we will be beaten,” she said.
“That person will be beaten, used the gun, wood. Sometimes they use their hands to punch them, mostly the guys.”
Recounting the circumstances surrounding their abduction, the victim said their bus departed at about 9am and stopped several times during the journey.
According to her, the driver eventually stopped at a location considered safer for passengers to rest before continuing along a dangerous stretch of the route.
She said she contacted her family to inform them that they would spend the night at a public place before going to sleep.
However, she later woke up in the kidnappers’ custody, unsure how she and the other victims had been taken into the forest.
“When I woke up, that was when the incident happened. I don’t know how we got to the forest where we were kept for some time,” she said.
The victim said the abductees were subsequently taken further into the forest, where their captors gave them very little food and dirty water.
“What we are eating there is just garri. Like Igbo garri, dry garri with mud water. Very dirty water,” she said.
“I can’t even give my enemy that water. We don’t have a choice, we have to take it for survival.”
She also described the emotional and psychological impact of the ordeal, saying she struggled to process what was happening to her.
“I can’t explain how I felt. I can’t even cry, I was just looking, I was lost. I don’t know what to do,” she said.
“It felt like it was a movie. I don’t believe that this is happening to me.”
She added that the experience had seemed so unreal that she had difficulty believing she would survive it.
“I don’t believe that I will be living there on that day, because everything just felt like it was some drama,” she said.
The victim credited security personnel, including operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS), with securing their release.
“The government, the DSS staff, we were rescued by them,” she said.
The 20 prospective corps members and another passenger were abducted on October 1, 2026, when gunmen attacked two buses along the Owerri-Onitsha Road near Umunoha in Imo State.
The victims were travelling from Ibadan, Oyo State, to their respective NYSC orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
They regained their freedom on October 7 following a coordinated operation involving security agencies. They were subsequently taken to a DSS medical facility in Owerri for medical attention.