{"id":23491,"date":"2017-07-04T06:40:13","date_gmt":"2017-07-04T06:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=23491"},"modified":"2017-07-04T06:40:13","modified_gmt":"2017-07-04T06:40:13","slug":"nigeria-priest-kidnapped-fulani-describes-ordeal-acn-malta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/04\/nigeria-priest-kidnapped-fulani-describes-ordeal-acn-malta\/","title":{"rendered":"NIGERIA &#8211; Priest kidnapped by Fulani describes his ordeal &#8211; ACN Malta"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>NIGERIA &#8211; Priest kidnapped by Fulani describes his ordeal<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Fr. Sam Okwuidegbe, a Nigerian Jesuit priest and director of a local spirituality center, was looking forward to a quiet retreat weekend last April <\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Before he set off, his new provincial, Fr. Chuks Afiawari, joked \u201cMake sure where you are going they don&#8217;t kidnap you.\u201d They laughed about it, not realising that the joke would be an unfortunate prediction of what was about to happen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">On his way to the retreat in Onitsha in the state of Anambra, Fr. Sam took a familiar and usually safe highway on which he had traveled many times. Suddenly he heard gunshots and realised that all the vehicles behind him had stopped and were trying to reverse. <\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">That\u2019s why he was so surprised when he heard gunshots. \u201cThat&#8217;s when it hit me that there was something dangerous ahead of me,\u201d recalled Fr Sam. \u201cOn looking up I saw masked men with AK47 rifles shooting. I was so scared. I also stopped my car abruptly and began to reverse, but as I was trying to do that, a man suddenly appeared \u2026 and said, \u2018If you don&#8217;t get out of the car I&#8217;ll shoot you.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The priest could see that the men had also stopped another car behind him and were forcing two men out of that car. Getting out in a hurry, Fr. Sam left his phone in the car. He soon realised the armed kidnappers were Fulani herdsmen, \u00a0the fourth most violent militant group in the world who have killed thousands of people in Nigeria over the past two decades.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The kidnappers forced Fr. Sam and the other two men to walk through the forest at gunpoint for eight hours, barely stopping for breaks. Eventually they let one of the two other men go because he could not keep up with the pace, but they first cut his feet so that he could not escape quickly. Fr. Sam said \u00a0\u201cThe pace in the forest was jogging, jumping over tree trumps, going over leaves, which often cut through our skin, so it was quite brutal.\u00a0 I was shaken and began to ask myself, is this happening to me? What am I doing here? I felt extremely cold and in my confusion \u2026 I&#8217;d mutter to myself, this can&#8217;t be happening, God. This can&#8217;t be happening.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The kidnappers started questioning Fr. Sam and the other man and became suspicious when Fr. Sam told them he was a priest, thinking he might be a government spy. They stripped him of all his belongings \u2013 his watch, wallet, and rosary \u2013 and were very angry when they found out he had left his mobile phone in his car. They asked Fr. Sam if he could remember the number of anyone who could negotiate a ransom for his life but he was too traumatized by his experience to remember any phone numbers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cThat triggered a series of beatings\u2026they huddled me up, hands and feet tied to the back with a rope like a goat before a kill. They removed my cassock, then my shirt, threw me into the dirt on the ground, and began to beat me with the back of their guns, they&#8217;d kick me hard on my sides, slap across my face, push and pull me hard across the ground\u2026one of them said \u2018We are going to burn you alive!\u2019\u201d the priest recalled. \u201cI really believed that they were going to do it\u2026I began to pray in silence\u2026I said, \u2018God, I commit to you, I commit my spirit&#8217; and I resigned to the thought of my fate, that I was going to die that day.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Fr. Sam remembers praying constantly through the whole experience. \u201cI hoped for a miracle\u2026every minute I&#8217;d pray saying all kinds of prayers, I&#8217;d pray to Saint Ignatius, say the rosary and the Divine Mercy (chaplet)\u2026at one time I found myself singing heartily but in the inside, a Ghanaian song that says &#8216;God speak to me\u2026God where are you?\u2019 I kept humming in my heart\u2026it gave me hope,\u201d he said. Finally, the beating stopped.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Eventually Fr. Sam was able to get the phone number of another Jesuit priest through the contact of the other man being held captive with him The Jesuit provincial, Fr. Jude Odiaka, began negotiations with the herdsmen. Fr. Sam felt better once he had made contact with the Jesuits. \u201cI knew that word must have gotten around about the kidnapping, and that the sisters at the retreat centre and people who knew me must have been praying for me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The other man who had been captured with Fr. Sam also was a great comfort, he recalled. \u201cHe was a grace for me, a gift from God. \u00a0I hope I was too for him because we exchanged words of encouragement silently, as we were not allowed to talk to each other.\u201d Finally, the captors seemed to have got what they wanted as they started talking of letting the men go. \u201cI intensified my prayers and I prayed to God \u2018Please God, make this end well,\u2019\u201d Fr. Sam said. When the two captives were eventually released, they were left to wander alone together through the forest, trying to find a way out. Eventually, they were able to make it to safety and return home.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">While the experience was \u201cpainful and traumatizing,\u201d Fr. Sam said his greatest consolation upon his return was hearing from many people, near and far, that they had been praying for him. \u201cIn all these things God revealed to me that I was never abandoned while in the forest, even if I was out of reach and in danger, that God heard the prayers and was with me,\u201d he said. \u201cIt has renewed my faith in God, my faith in people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Fr. Sam now plans to use his kidnapping experience to help other people. \u201cThis has also given me an understanding to accompany those who come to me for help seeking solace, encouragement, strength, hope, \u2026maybe that&#8217;s why it happened.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cI&#8217;m going to use it in my work as a counselor and psychologist to help those who come to me for help, because what support can be given to people that have been kidnapped? What help can we give such people? I think I have become part of that help with what I have experienced.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><em>ACN Malta<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NIGERIA &#8211; Priest kidnapped by Fulani describes his ordeal &nbsp; Fr. Sam Okwuidegbe, a Nigerian Jesuit priest and director of a local spirituality center, was looking forward to a quiet retreat weekend last April Before he set off, his new provincial, Fr. Chuks Afiawari, joked \u201cMake sure where you are going they don&#8217;t kidnap you.\u201d&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23493,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>NIGERIA - Priest kidnapped by Fulani describes his ordeal - ACN Malta - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/07\/04\/nigeria-priest-kidnapped-fulani-describes-ordeal-acn-malta\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NIGERIA - Priest kidnapped by Fulani describes his ordeal - ACN Malta - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NIGERIA &#8211; Priest kidnapped by Fulani describes his ordeal &nbsp; Fr. 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