Gracie, a lowly-paid electronics salesgirl, narrates her ordeal in the hands of ritualists, who kidnapped and lured her into their hideout for slaughter but was miraculously saved by God through fervent prayers. RUTH CHOJI writes.
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Iam a 27-year-old salesgirl for an Igbo trader who deals on electronics and other household equipment. I have been in the business for sometime. My plan was to get married and bring up my children before going for further studies.?? I am a regular church person, having been brought up in the way of the Lord by my parents. I grew up in the church where, my late father served a pastor. I developed and sustained my prayer life from that background and have been praying fervently on any issue of interest to me. It is one of my prayer requests that the person I will eventually marry will be a Godly man.
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Recently, I closed from work around 6 pm and was standing on the road to board a taxi home when one cab with three passengers, including a lady, pulled up for me. I noticed that as soon as I got inside the taxi, the woman who sat next to me began to behave in strange and funny way. She brought out a powdery substance from her bag and began to rub on her face. But in the process, she intentionally spread the powder on me and I lost consciousness as soon as some of the particles landed on me. That is all I remember. I was charmed and taken away into the hideout of the ritual killers’ evil forest. And that is all I can remember of that ugly day.??
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By the time I woke up in a hut in one of the remote villages, I was naked, my hands tied and my hair shaved. I looked round and saw many strange faces of men and women who kept staring at me but without uttering a word. I was stiff scared but could not do anything to help myself out of my predicament. I knew I was in the middle of nowhere; in short I was like a lamb in the altar ready to be sacrificed by the blood-thirsty moguls. I tried in vain to untie myself but couldn’t and tear overwhelmed me. I cried as I had never before in my life.? But my tears did not bring any help. In fact, the more I cried the more hardened my captors had become, ready to spill my blood for money before daybreak. As I sat there in my agony, they kept coming and taking away one captive after the other within 30 minutes’ interval. I knew within me that there was no escape route for me except God intervened.
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I started praying violently but nothing happened. It was as if the prayer did not ascend into heaven and as if somebody was diverting it away from God. Then, the moment for me to be taken away came. I closed my eyes and said my last prayer. Fear and sweat reeled over me and I started panting for water and air. “Get up!” a male voice ordered violently and “do not make any mistake to move!” he further threatened. By this time, the hood they used in covering my face had been removed and I began to speak in tongues and encouraged myself with the words of God.
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By the time they took me to the shrine, an old man of about 70 years was seated there and chanting some inaudible words of incantation and looking at me with disdain. I could hardly face him because of the quantity of charms, amulets and other scary voodoo items wrapped around him. They ordered me to kneel down and a white cloth immediately placed over my head. “Say your last prayers and confess your sins,” the soothsayer ordered, but I ignored him and screamed repeatedly, ‘The Blood of Jesus’. I noticed that the old man who was to carry out my killing became increasingly uncomfortable at my screams and refused to look at my direction. After trying in vain to break my defiant spirit, the old man shouted on top of his voice, “Get out of here, the gods have rejected you.” “Where did you take this demon from,” he queried my captors, as he began to behave as if he was tormented by unseen forces.? At once, two men rushed me out of the shrine and quickly got me into a taxi to take me away. After driving for over an hour, I saw myself on a roadside along a major highway in one of the northern states.
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Weak and devastated by my predicament, I lay on the roadside for about four hours, not being able to muster enough strength to flag down any vehicle to take me to my destination. I was in that state of inertia until two villagers on a motorcycle noticed me and stopped to ask what I was doing there. They must have been attracted by the white tunic I had on me as they passed by, as my strength has since evaporated. I begged them to help me and when they heard the voice of a woman, they came closer, asked me who I was and what I was doing there, I narrated everything to them.
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The two men directed me to their village head who also listened to my story with the aid of an interpreter. The man ordered that I should be given some food and water. Later, they organised for me to have my bath, the first in about a week. I spent the night in the compound of the village head but could not sleep soundly because of the fear that the ritualists could return. But God saved me and made the people to show sympathy to me. They sourced for money for my transportation back to Abuja the following day and I was full of praises to them.
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On getting to Abuja, my master and aunt who had already reported to the police that I was missing were very happy to see me. My mother and siblings, who had learnt of my disappearance and had thought that I had died, were all waiting in Abuja and I walked into their warm embrace upon arrival. While in captivity, my aunt had taken the matter to the church and it became a prayer point for many days. I strongly believe it was their prayers that saved me.
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My boss’s happiness knew no bounds as he feared that people might accuse him of sacrificing me for rituals, when in fact he knew nothing about my whereabouts.? Although the police insisted I must take them to the place where I was kidnapped and I went with them to Gombe, I could neither recognise the road to the evil forest where I was tied to a stick nor the house where I was kept for days. While I thank God for my miraculous release from the killers, I keep praying for the safety of those I left behind in captivity in that wicket hideout.