Escape from Hell: My 42-Day Nightmare in the Den of Killers

​By Olatunji Adesina.O.

​ADO-EKITI – For Gbolahan Olaniyi, a 26-year-old former farm manager, the boundary between life and death was as thin as the edge of the AK-47 rifles pointed at his head for six harrowing weeks. Today, he stands as a haunting testament to Nigeria’s kidnapping epidemic, having survived 42 days in a forest stronghold that spanned three states—Ekiti, Kwara, and Kogi.

​His ordeal began on a deceptive Thursday morning, October 23, 2025. While managing YSJ Limited’s farm in Oke Ako, Ikole Local Government Area, Olaniyi went searching for a tractor operator whose phone had gone silent. He found more than a missing colleague; he found an ambush. Seven gunmen, communicating in the rhythmic grunts of cattle herders, seized him, his bike, and ₦8,000 meant for workers’ wages.

ADVERTISEMENT

​A Trail of Blood and Broken Promises

​The forest at the back of the farm became a gateway to a living hell. Olaniyi was marched through rivers and over hills, eventually joining a group of 11 captives. Among them was the tractor operator, already nursing a gunshot wound to the hand.

​The cruelty of the captors was matched only by the desperation of the negotiations. Initially, the bandits demanded ₦100 million for Olaniyi and ₦50 million for the operator. When Olaniyi’s employer—the owner of YSJ Limited—allegedly blocked communication after an initial ₦2 million payment, the burden fell on his family.

​”That was the craziest day of my life,” Olaniyi recalled, his voice trembling at the memory of the eighth day.

​After his parents delivered a ₦15 million ransom and supplies to a drop-off point in Egbe, Kogi State, the bandits reneged. Claiming the money was “incomplete,” they demanded an additional ₦55 million. To punctuate their ruthlessness, they executed the tractor operator in cold blood after his family could only raise ₦2 million.

​”He shot him twice—once in the stomach and once in the chest. He was killed immediately because the bandit said ₦2 million was not money,” Olaniyi said. He was then forced to carry his colleague’s corpse into the bush.

​The Great Escape

​As the weeks blurred into a haze of saltless white rice and a single litre of water per day, the group was moved to a new location. There, Olaniyi witnessed the scale of the crisis; he claims his captors were the same syndicate responsible for the Eruku CAC attack in Kwara State, where 38 people were abducted.

​The turning point came on the 42nd day. A disgruntled “errand boy” for the bandits, angry after receiving only ₦15,000 from a second ₦2 million ransom paid by Olaniyi’s mother, abandoned his post. In a rare act of defiance or perhaps pity, he left behind the keys to the chains and handcuffs.

​”We waited for an hour to be sure it wasn’t a trap,” Olaniyi explained. Under the cover of darkness, he and two other remaining captives unlocked their shackles and plunged into the thick forest.

​The Long Road Home

​For three days, the trio navigated the wilderness, drinking from rivers and following tractor tyre tracks. They eventually emerged at a plantation near Isanlu-Esa in Kogi State. Exhausted and skeletal, they were fed by local farmers before being escorted to an army camp.

​Recent police reports from the Ekiti State Command indicate that an informant, Jeremiah Nwagh, was arrested in November 2025 for aiding the abduction at the YSJ farm. However, for Olaniyi, the “arrests” bring little comfort.

​Currently jobless and haunted by the shadow of every stranger he meets, the trauma remains an open wound. “Anytime I go out and see a Fulani man, I am scared,” he admitted. For this 26-year-old, the 42 days may be over, but the forest, it seems, hasn’t quite let go of him.