The Ransom Dealers

Not Her Fault

Amira Usman lay on a double seater in her sitting room and stared across the big, flat screen TV. A musician was busy screaming his head off in one of the DSTV channels. Amira did not even hear him. Her mind was miles away.

She was wearing a silky tracksuit which went well with her sensual body. Her face was expressionless. Her body was well proportioned: her breasts a little heavy, her hips rounded and solid, her legs long and slim. The perfect figure ‘8’.

She was seventeen and had been married for two years now. Her mind went back three years, when she was barely fourteen years old. Life in Gaida, Kano, had always been peaceful, pleasant, and easy for her. Surrounded by her father, two stepmothers, multiple brothers and two sisters, she was content.

But all that started to change when her mother saw her blood soaked pants as a result of her first menstrual cycle. She was in her first year in the Junior Secondary School, Zawachiki.

Traditionally, as soon as any of his daughters started her menstrual flow, Alhaji Usman had to marry her off before the third one pronto!

Amira felt far from ready to leave home and start a family of her own. She was thirteen for God’s sake.

But Amira was not the only one in her family facing difficulty and life-altering changes. Her older sister, Zainab, recently divorced, and battling with the dreaded VVF disease, was paralyzed by the fear that her young daughter will be snatched from her by her ex-husband. She lived in fear daily while still struggling to overcome the Vesico-Vaginal Fistula.

Ahmad was their eldest brother. Armed with a bachelor's degree from Bayero University Kano, he had just gotten employment with Access Bank Plc. He was unmarried, but he had finally fallen in love. His family forbade it because the girl in question, Serah, was a Catholic Christian from Jos. Their love was faced with constant opposition due to religious and cultural differences.

As talk of Amira’s marriage continued and a potential groom was identified, she grew more and more anxious.

How could she leave the childhood home she loved so much? How could she be expected to move so quickly from being a child to having children of her own when she was just a child herself? Was she really ready for marriage?

These questions tormented her day and night. She could not even confide in her mother, or any of her siblings. Everyone had enough on their plates.

Then the kidnap happened, and that sealed her fate. Immediately her father was able to affect her release, he married her off without a second thought. She hated her father, and she would never forgive him for cutting short her life like that.

Again she thought of that evening when she was getting into her father’s Toyota Sienna outside Sahad Stores, Zoo Road, and two men had suddenly appeared with guns in their hands.

She had gone to get some personal items with their driver and her aunt. After they were through with the shopping, as she was getting into the car, these kidnappers appeared out of the darkness. They were all masked and dressed in kaftans.

Amira immediately realized they intended to kidnap her. Kidnapping in Nigeria was common, and everyone had heard of all the famous kidnappings that had occurred. The Chibok School kidnapping, then Dapchi, then Kagara, then Katsina, then Zamfara… all over the country.

“Get out of the car!” one of them brandished his gun and waved it at Mamu, her driver. Her aunt Hajia screamed.

“Quiet!” the guy yelled, “Do you want to get killed?”

He motioned to Mamu and Hajia to step out of the car. The other guy stepped into the driver’s seat, started the car and zoomed away with a screech of tires.

Hajia fell on the ground, wailing at the top of her voice.

Amira was scared out of her wits as she huddled on the middle seat in the SUV. The vehicle had tinted windows and no one could see what was inside the car. The driver moved at a very high and reckless speed, cutting through the traffic and other road users like a hot knife through butter.

They drove for a while on Zaria road, and after a while the driver parked the car by the road. His partner immediately produced a black hood and used a handkerchief to tap her mouth shut. He then placed the hood over her eyes, shutting out her vision.

She spent two days in captivity before her father paid the ransom demanded. As soon as she was released and picked up by her father, she noticed some kind of resentment and hostility from him. Amira was very sensitive to an unfriendly atmosphere, and her antenna was blinking rapidly.

She was to discover later that her father assumed the kidnappers had violated her, making her impure. He didn't want her anywhere near him, and the sight of her in his house almost drove him over the edge. His solution was simple and precise: marriage. Find a suitor, any suitor, and marry Amira off. And that was what he did...