By Solomon Ojoto Enejoh.
A military patrol team in transit has rescued a Kogi-born business mogul, Chief Gideon Ojata from the hands of kidnappers.
The incident which took place at Aloma, one of the neighboring villages of Ejule the country home of Chief Gideon Ojata in Ofu Local Government Area of Kogi State on the 19th of January 2019 was the second failed attack in the life of Chief Ojata within the space of just a month.
It can be recalled that some assailants had invaded the country home of Chief Ojata earlier this year but were unable to perfect their criminal intention of either assassinating or kidnapping him because, by sheer act of providence, he had already stepped out of his house before their arrival. Though, sadly enough, the unknown gunmen didn’t leave his house without sending the son of his security guard, Umar Galadima to his early grave.
Chief Ojata, though permanently based in the Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, where he runs conglomerates of businesses, he usually touches his home town as often as possible in order to keep in touch with some family and other exigencies as the cases arise.
Meanwhile, speaking with our Correspondent in a phone conversation, one of his Aides, Dickson Ameh, narrated how the scenario unfolded. According to him, the incident happened at Aloma, one of the villages close to Ejule in Ofu Local Government Area where Chief Ojata hails from.
He said: “I was in the same vehicle with Chief Ojata at Aloma on Saturday, the 19th of January when all of a sudden, right in front of the Government Science Secondary School, a Peugeot 307, black in colour, spade past our own and suddenly stopped in front of our vehicle. It forcefully pushed us into a nearby shallow drainage and the next thing we saw were heavily armed men rushing in our direction.
“Just like in a movie, we were rounded up within a second. The first man rushed to the direction where the Chief was siting, pulled the vehicle door open by force and dragged him out.
“As if that was not enough, the second man joined him and they started to mercilessly torture the Chief. It was in the middle of that gruesome torture that Chief was painfully dragged on the ground towards their waiting vehicle with his entire cloth soaked in blood that a passing Army Van loaded with a detachment of Soldiers usually on routine patrol was sighted by the hoodlums from a distance. That was his saving grace.
“Although the Soldiers didn’t notice what was happening to us at first, which was not too distant from a police post in the area, but by the time one of the kidnappers signaled his cohorts that Soldiers were in sight, they quickly abandon Chief and hastily entered their vehicle with so much starting speed and the screeching sound of their vehicle tires created a scene because the point of the attack wasn’t far from the town.”
Ameh also explained that immediately the Kidnappers spade off, the Soldiers hurriedly came to rescue the Chief and other occupants of the vehicle and he (Ojata) was immediately driven to a nearby Police Station. It was, according to the Aide, the police who later took Chief Ojata to an undisclosed hospital for security reasons.
Meanwhile, Chief Ojata, according to findings hails from a royal lineage where he is supposed to have taken up a Chieftaincy title but has, on each occasion rebuffed the advances from the elders from his village, Agojeju, who are the custodians of his family’s customs and tradition.
According to a close friend of Chief Ojata who spoke to our correspondent on grounds of anonymity, Chief Ojata has, on a number of occasions violated some of the traditional injunctions in his village and the custodians of those traditions would do anything to bring him before their deity.
He said: “I think that the attempted kidnap on Chief Ojata couldn’t have been far from the orchestration of his village traditional men who have been feeling that he has violated some of their traditional customary practices.
“Though one cannot rule out the fact that his business competitors could also want him dead as it is very common in Nigeria today. But this latest one that the assailants wanted to practically kidnap him, tilts more to that their barbaric traditional practices that would want to force whoever they think has to perform some kind of traditional rites and he is not obliging,” he explained, adding that “the people in question do not, and will never have any regard for the fact that Chief Ojata is a Christian and would not want to meddle in such traditional practices. They would have been the ones who had sponsored those kidnappers to bundle him to their presence in the village before those soldiers intercepted them.”
Confirming the assassination attempt, Chief Ojata said that it was God who sent those soldiers to rescue him.
He stated: “I’m still in shock that my life is being hunted as though I have commuted a crime. If not for those military men, I don’t know what would have become of me today. But I thank God that he spared my life.”
It now behooves on the Nigerian Police, who have said that they have been on the trail of the fleeing criminals in order to unravel the mysteries behind the frequent assassinate attempts on the life of Chief Ojata so as to bring them to justices.
