Abducted victims not too long ago free of captivity have revealed that kidnappers used toxic snakes to terrorise them.
The victims, who recounted their ordeals in separate interviews, stated there have been many snakes within the forests inhabited by the bandits. They stated the snakes typically chew each the abductors and the victims.
One of them, who craved anonymity, informed journalists that kidnappers threw them into snake-infested spots.
“The kidnappers know the areas infested with snakes and would often throw the victims there. Immediately they see snakes, the fear-stricken victims will want to run away. The sight is used to frighten people.
“That is when a victim can ask friends and family members to sell everything – house, land, cars, household items, shoes, just everything – to raise the ransom,” the sufferer defined.
An investigation revealed that the worst snake-infested forests are in Birnin Gwari in Kaduna State and Kala-Balge, close to Lake Chad, in Borno.
Other areas included Shaki in Oyo State, Borgu and Kagara in Niger, Karim Lamido in Adamawa, and Lau in Taraba.
Some victims stated the scenario is worse now with the present warmth, as snakes depart their holes in the hunt for contemporary air and meals.
“While I was in captivity, snakes bit some victims. The kidnappers were not spared as some of them also got bitten,” stated a sufferer, who was taken right into a thick forest in Kagara, in Niger.
Abdulsalam Nasidi, the chairman of Echitap Study Group, the outfit in control of Echitap Anti-Snake Venom(ASV), who spoke on the event, confirmed that banditry was related to areas liable to snake bites.
Mr Nasidi, whose group collaborates with Micropharm UK Ltd and Instituto Clodomiro Picardo (ICP), Costa Rica, to carry the medication to Nigeria, decried the rising instances of snake bites in Nigeria.
“Unfortunately for us, the cost of snake bite treatment has gone well beyond the reach of the poor,” he stated.
While confirming that some abductees certainly returned with snake chew wounds, he stated the cost of remedy might solely be inexpensive if the ASV medication have been produced regionally.
“The rise in the value of the dollar has made the cost of foreign production so high that the poor man who, in most cases, is the victim of snake bites, cannot afford it,” stated Mr Nasidi.
He recognized essentially the most toxic snakes in Nigeria as carpet viper, puff adder and black cobra.
On kidnappers intentionally exposing their victims to snakes, he identified that the reptiles have no idea the distinction between a kidnapper and his sufferer.
He significantly condemned the inhuman behaviour of exposing abductees to snake bites and regretted the “zero” premium placed on human life.
“From the accounts of victims, kidnapped people could see a snake coming toward them and are not allowed to run. Nothing is more traumatising,” Mr Nasidi added.
(NAN)
