For Temiloluwa Faith, an IT officer in Edo State heading home to her parents to enjoy an annual leave, Thursday, June 25, was supposed to be the start of a well-deserved rest.

Instead, a free ride from her company’s senior manager turned into a living hell along the Ogbere axis of the Sagamu-Benin Expressway.

Within minutes, she went from anticipating the comfort of home to spitting out her own teeth, staring into the masked faces of five heavily armed kidnappers.

“It was around 4pm and then we just heard a gunshot,” Temiloluwa recalled, with her voice still trembling from the trauma.

“There was a vehicle in front of us and one behind us. The three vehicles collided at the same time and I hit my head on the front seat. That was what removed my teeth,” she disclosed.

The owner of the vehicle was said to have escaped through the left side, but Temioluwa was trapped in by the jammed door.

However, another male passenger who sat in front noticed that she was bleeding and stayed behind to shield her as the kidnappers surrounded their Toyota Camry.

“They were using cutlasses to touch the vehicle, shouting at me to come down, they asked the man why he was holding me back and he replied begging them that I was injured. But they dragged him out of the vehicle,” she recounted.

The gunmen stripped Temiloluwa of her wristwatch, her bracelet, and a N500 note she had held in her hand to buy plantain chips.

Temiloluwa and four other victims intercepted from three different vehicles were led into the thick forest.

“We trekked inside the thick bush for close to 4 hours at midnight. Barefooted, inside water, shuku-shuku (thorns) piercing our feet. We were moving in a single file, with them in the front, middle, and back. There was no way to run,” she recalled.

 

A Trail of Blood and Broken Families

While five commuters were taken hostage, others nearby ran for their lives.

Among them was Mrs Blessing Nsofor, a widow clothed in white mourning attire, returning from Anambra State where she had just buried her husband.

Traveling with her children and sister, she was shot in the hand during the ambush.

After shooting her, one of the kidnappers ruthlessly turned his attention to her terrified family, dragging one of her daughters- the surviving twin of a child she had previously buried and her sister out of the vehicle and forcing them into a nearby Toyota Sienna.

“The young man looked me in the face and said, ‘Come out or I will shoot you’. I was trying to come out when he shot me in the hand,” she recounted raising the bandaged hand up.

“The person that shot me left me and dragged my daughter to the Sienna opposite the car we entered, he came back again and dragged my sister. I jumped into a big gutter and I lay down flat with my other daughter lying on top of me.

“Nobody carried me, I managed myself, as an old woman. My sweater was full of blood. I held my hand and ran with my first daughter.”

Her daughter, Amara Nsofor, 26, recalled the chilling separation in the chaos.

“The last thing I heard was my aunt screaming, ‘Run! Run!’ But a gunman separated my aunt and me from my mum and sister, directing us into the bush,” Amara said.

Her mother and her bleeding sister were left behind.

Still clutching her phone, Amara whispered to her aunt, Mercy Otu, 52, who is also a widow asking if she should call her uncle.

Her aunt stopped her immediately.

The gunmen had already delivered a grim warning: “If you make any attempt to call anybody in the bush, we will kill you.”

Inside the forest where ‘Babangida’ demanded N170 Million

Deep within the forest, the hostages came face-to-face with the head of the gang.

Jimoh Gbadamosi, 58, the only man among the four other victims disclosed that the leader of the gang introduced himself as “Babangida” and other members of the gang communicated fluently among themselves in ‘Fulani’.

The captors returned the victims’ seized phones one by one, ordering them to call their families. The financial demands were staggering.

For Temiloluwa and Gbadamosi the price of freedom was pegged at N70 million. N40millon for him and N30million for her.

Amara’s family was ordered to pay N50 million, though her aunt successfully pleaded to have it reduced to N40 million.

Mrs Otu said, “I cried and begged them that I am a widow who suffered for 12 years to train my children.

“Will I die like this? I asked their leader, but he responded saying ‘Madam even if you die, God will keep the children’”.

Meanwhile, Ogechi Onuorah, 46, another victim from Enugu State returning to Lagos after burying her mother, was asked to pay N50 million.

The gang leader informed her that her case was different because they were deliberately targeting Igbo commuters on that stretch of the highway, claiming Easterners had killed Fulani men and shot their cattle.

“For that reason, he said my own case was different,” she recalled.

When her husband attempted to negotiate the sum down from N500,000 upward to N5 million on the phone, the leader abruptly ordered her to sit down, dismissing them as unserious.

The Midnight Rescue: ‘Operation Kosaye’

As the night bled into Friday morning, despair turned to resignation. Temiloluwa said she began preparing for her death.

For Gbadamosi, solace was also found in his faith.

The hostages were rescued barely 24 hours into their ordeal by a joint security operation from the Ogun and Lagos State Commands, codenamed Operation Kosaye (meaning “No Space/No Chance”).

For Mrs Nsofo who has already tasted the bitterness of loss having buried her husband and one of her twins, the fact that her sister, her daughters all survived the attack is nothing short of a divine miracle.

 

UGAMATV reports that this experience completely transformed the victims perception of the Nigeria Police Force.

Like many citizens, Mrs Nsofo admitted to previously harboring deep hatred towards the police.

Also, Temiloluwa echoed the sentiment, praising the post-rescue medical attention and emotional support they received.

 

Gbadamosi urged Nigerians to change their bad orientation regarding security agencies, saying, “What I saw from the Nigeria Police really surprised me. I didn’t dream such a thing could happen in Nigeria, but it did. Kudos to the IGP and the Ogun State CP.”

Clear the Bushes, Weaponize the Force – Rescued Victims Beg Federal Government

While celebrating their freedom, the rescued victims urged the Ogun and the federal governments to ensure that the Ogbere stretch does not remain a playground for kidnappers, noting that the vast, uncultivated forests along major southwestern highways provide perfect cover for criminal camps.

The victims emphasized that the kidnappers were heavily armed with fully loaded AK-47s, calling on the government to provide the police with even more sophisticated weaponry and to incentivize the officers who put their lives on the line.

Briefing journalists last Saturday at the Ogun Police Training College in Iperu, the State Commissioner of Police, Bode Ojajuni, alongside his Lagos counterpart CP Tijani Fatai, disclosed that the tactical breakthrough was a direct directive from Inspector General of Police, Olatunji Disu.

Ojajuni confirmed that four of their abductors were killed in the exchange of fire, while another four suspected kidnappers who were arrested during forest sweeping operations are in custody.

According to the police commands, the joint bush-combing exercise spanning the Lagos, Ogun, and Oyo boundaries led to the dismantling of several criminal hideouts and the arrest of 84 suspects (75 males and 9 females).

Ojajuni said, “We have cleared the bushes right from Ikeja down to Kara bridge, to Redeem camp, Iseri corridor. We have moved to Owode Egba axis down to Ogere, we have extended to Ijebu Igbo, Ijebu Ode, J4 at the fringe of Ondo state boundary.

On his part, the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Tijani Fatai, reiterated the Force’s commitment to the safety and security of citizens, asserting that the exercise will continue and be replicated across other states.

Gov Abiodun Hails ‘Operation Kosaye,’ Declares War on Criminals

Reacting to the successful tactical breakthrough, the Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, commended the Inspector-General of Police, Olatunji Disu, for initiating Operation Kosaye, describing the joint cross-border security operations as a bold, proactive, and an intelligence-driven initiative that has fundamentally restored public confidence in the Nigeria Police Force.

Abiodun in a statement signed by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Kayode Akinmade, said the operation which saw operatives comb dense forests and criminal hideouts has transformed the Ogun-Lagos corridor into a highly hostile territory for kidnappers, bandits, and violent syndicates attempting to exploit shared border communities as havens.

The governor while praising the Commissioners of Police for Ogun and Lagos States, CP Bode Ojajuni and CP Tijani Fatai, alongside the frontline officers involved in the rescue mission, applauded their professionalism, courage, and dedication during the rescue.

He noted that the success of the crackdown highlights the critical importance of inter-state collaboration and seamless intelligence sharing, urging other states across the federation to emulate this collaborative security model.

Meanwhile, Abiodun reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to sustaining the momentum and pledged continued investment in state-of-the-art security infrastructure, surveillance technology, and critical logistics to support law enforcement.

He argued that protecting lives and property remains a cardinal objective of his government, promising that Ogun State will continue to provide the necessary operational mobility to ensure security agencies permanently dismantle highway criminal networks.