They Told Me My Death Hour Was Ten O'Clock - Professor Recounts Gruesome Experience With Kidnappers

 

 

Professor Hope Eghagha of the Department of English, University of Lagos, Akoka, was kidnapped a few years on his way to Asaba while still working as the Commissioner for Higher Education in Delta State, a position he held between 2009 and 2014.

 

According to him, it was a terrible encounter which he will never wish for his enemy. He said his ordeal in the hands of his abductors lasted for  days that looked like eternity. Now, the Professor has chosen to look at his traumatic experience from a positive point.

 

Vanguard reports that the man's encounter with kidnappers has birthed a short story titled “Your Death Hour is 10 O’clock, a factional presentation of his kidnap experience. As part of Arts Faculty Seminar series, Your Hour of Death is Ten O’Clock was read by Prof Eghagha to a mixed audience at the English Department UNILAG, last Thursday. It was thereafter, thrown to the floor for comments and criticisms.

 

In his review, Prof. Patrick  Oloko described the story as a marriage of facts and fiction which emphasises the need to re-interrogate our values and morals.

 

Prof Eghagha, while fielding questions from the media shortly after the Seminar, praised God for delivering him and for helping him overcome the traumatic experience.

 

He said: “The first lesson I learnt from my abduction is that one must be very close to God, don’t take anything for granted. That encounter brought me closer, face to face with the rough guys of society and I saw the depth of their anger, sometimes misplaced. It brought me close to the ordinary people of the society.”

 

Recounting his ordeal, he explained that, “There was no certainty that I was going to come out alive, in fact I said my last prayer three times. Much later I discovered that they didn’t want to kill me. Whenever they said your death hour is ten o’clock that scared life out of me.”

 

On why it took him this long to write the story and in the third person narrative, he noted that: “I have to come to terms with what happened to me and also I wanted to write my story after I left government office. Subsequently, I am going to do a play out of this short story. I chose the third person narrative because I wanted to detach myself from the story.

 

 

Dismissing the speculations that his kidnap was politically  motivated, Prof Eghagha said, “They were just hoodlums looking for money but must have had connections with me before the kidnap day. I don’t think it was politically motivated.”

 

Eghagha who described kidnapping as a global challenge, stressed that the ugly trend should be “tackled through people oriented programmes that will create jobs for the young people. Security network should be made better, special unit should be created  in the intelligence arms, the Police, Army,  anti-kidnapping squad so that they can evaluate kidnapping.”