141 Days in Captivity: Mohammed Baba Salihu's Escape From Two Bandit Camps and the Nine-Day Blind Walk Between Them

Abducted from his home in Tsaragi, Edu Local Government Area of Kwara State, on the night of May 8, 2026, Salihu spent more than four months moving between at least two bandit camps, nursed a fellow captive shot during a ransom handover and later die in captivity, and says he was, at points, fed only once every four days. In this exclusive interview with NupekoTV's Usman Haruna, he narrates the night gunmen stormed his community, the ransom drop that ended in gunfire, the nine days he spent walking blind through the bush after his first escape, and the morning he and eight other survivors finally stumbled into Lata Nna and into the hands of locals.

‘They Came at Night, Looking for the Engineer’

It was the night of May 8, 2026, when gunmen entered Tsaragi. By his account, the attackers had come with a specific target: an engineer working in the community. Whatever went wrong with that plan, Salihu says, ended in bloodshed before he himself was seized.

“They did not come for me,” Salihu told NupekoTV, recalling the confusion of that night. “Something happened, and before I understood what was going on, a person was already dead, and they had turned to me.”

Public records corroborate the broad shape of his account. Local media reported that gunmen attacked Tsaragi in the early hours of Saturday, May 9, killing a resident identified as Baba Nnayaya and abducting another person from the community, part of a string of attacks that had already forced neighbouring households to flee and pushed local authorities to impose a curfew.

What is not in dispute is what came next: Salihu was marched out of Tsaragi and into the bush, the first of at least two bandit camps in which he would spend the next 141 days.

A Ransom Delivery That Ended in Gunfire

At one point during his captivity, Salihu recalls two men arriving at the bandit's camp area in connection with a ransom he puts at roughly ₦13 million, meant to secure his freedom. According to him, the visit ended in violence.

“One of them was shot. The other one ran and escaped into the bush,” Salihu said.

The man who was shot did not die immediately. Two days later, Salihu says, the bandits brought the wounded man to him and asked whether he recognised him. He did. “I told them yes, I knew him,” he recalled. What followed was one of the more haunting threads of his account: for a period afterward, Salihu was permitted to help care for the injured man inside the camp, providing what support he could for a gunshot wound with no medical care in sight.

“He was getting better. I could see it. He was becoming stronger,” Salihu said. “That was when they separated us again. That was the last time I saw him.”

The man did not survive. By the time Salihu made his way home, he learned that the wounded man had died in the bandits' custody sometime after the two of them were pulled apart. “He was getting stronger when they took him from me. I did not know, until I came home, that he did not make it,” Salihu said.

Hunger as a Weapon

If the violence marked the sharpest edges of his captivity, it was hunger and thirst, Salihu says, that wore him down most steadily. He describes stretches in which food came once every four days, and water was never given daily.

“Sometimes it was four days before food reached us, not just food, even water was never given daily” he said. “You stop thinking about being hungry after a while. Your body just becomes weak. I lost a lot of my strength. I lost my fitness. I am not the person I was before May.”

Nine Days With No Road Home

Salihu's first escape did not deliver him to safety. Cut loose from the camp, he found himself alone in dense bush with no path he recognized.

“I did not know the road. I did not know which direction led home,” he said. “I walked for nine days.”

With a body already depleted by months of captivity, Salihu walked for nine days without knowing whether he was moving toward home or further from it. In the end, it was a cruel turn: freedom from one camp did not lead him home, but into the hands of another armed group.

“I thought I had escaped. Instead, I met another set of bandits who took me to another camp” he said. “The suffering continued.”

A Second Captivity

After nine days of walking through the bush without knowing the way home, Salihu eventually found himself in another bandit camp. The escape he had hoped would bring his captivity to an end had instead led him back into the hands of the kidnappers.

He was held there with other captives, and the ordeal continued. The same uncertainty that had defined his earlier captivity returned, with the captives never knowing what the next day would bring or how long they would remain there.

Salihu had already endured months in captivity and nine days alone in the bush. Now, after finding himself in another camp, he had to endure captivity once again while waiting for another opportunity to get out.

The final escape

On Saturday, September 26, 2026, Salihu and the other eight captives finally escaped together. According to Salihu, among them were two Fulani men who could understand some of the conversations between the kidnappers and would share what they heard with the other captives. At one point, when they noticed there was no supervision around them, they took advantage of the opportunity and all nine of them escaped together.

At Lata Nna

It was at Lata Nna that NupekoTV conducted this exclusive interview with Salihu, shortly after he and the eight others were received there.

Lata Nna is a border town in Patigi Local Government Area of Kwara State, straddling Patigi and neighbouring Ifelodun Local Government Area, where some of the bandit camps operating in the axis are believed to be based. That location has made it a familiar landing point for captives who manage to break free in that part of the state. Escapees fleeing camps in the bush along that border frequently emerge into Lata Nna before they reach any other settlement, which is part of why the community has repeatedly found itself receiving survivors, Salihu among them, before troops and other authorities take over.

“When we finally walked into Lata Nna, some of us could barely stand,” he said. “It was the community member who welcomed us and soldiers who took it from there: the questioning, and then handing us back to our people.”

Muhammed Baba Salihu at Lata Nna

A Familiar Pattern of Violence in Kwara North

Salihu's account, of an engineer targeted in Tsaragi, a ransom drop that turned violent and cost a fellow captive his life, months of engineered starvation, and a nine-day walk that led from one captivity into another, sits within a documented pattern of banditry and kidnap-for-ransom violence across Kwara State's Edu, Ifelodun and Patigi council areas over the past year, where community leaders have repeatedly demanded government action and the release of residents still being held.

The road to recovery

For now, Mohammed Baba Salihu is receiving medical attention as he recovers from the physical toll of months in captivity and nine-days blind walk spent in the bush without proper food or water. He is being treated for severe dehydration and malnutrition as he has lost significant weight and muscle mass and will need time to regain his strength. He is also being monitored for the psychological effects of the ordeal. His family remains by his side as he begins what is expected to be a long road to recovery.

Mohammed Baba Salihu receiving medical care