A priest of the Otukpo diocese in Nigeria's Benue State walked free on the evening of October 18, five days after gunmen seized him on a rural road. Father John Inalegwu Otache was taken on October 13 as he drove home from Otukpo along the Otobi Amejo–Ajegbe road in the Ohimini area.
Police in Benue confirmed his release and said security forces rescued him in an operation that also freed other captives. Seven other recent kidnapping victims were brought out alive, and officers arrested two suspects. The freed captives were taken to the University Hospital in Otukpo for medical checks. The diocese confirmed that Father Otache was safe.
Police have not released the identity of the kidnappers or said what they wanted. Some local sources said citizen vigilante groups helped in the search. No ransom has been confirmed by authorities.
The case is one of many. Benue lies in Nigeria's Middle Belt, where farming villages, many of them Christian, have suffered years of armed raids, killings and abductions. Travelers on country roads there know the risk. A priest in a clerical collar, a pastor on his way to a service, a farmer driving to market: any of them can be stopped, forced into the bush and held for money. This one came home. Others in that region have not.
Five days is a long time
Think about those five days. A man of God sat in captivity while his flock waited. His parishioners did not know whether he was alive. His family did not know whether he would be handed back or buried in a shallow grave. Seven other people were held with him or nearby, and each of them has a family too. Their names never reached the headlines, but heaven has them all.
Nigeria's Christians do not need our pity as much as they need to be remembered. Too many in comfortable places hear of a kidnapping and move on to the next thing on the screen. Scripture will not let a believer do that.
"Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body." (Hebrews 13:3)
Notice the words "as bound with them." That is not a polite nod. It means putting yourself in the cell. It means knowing that the body of Christ is one body, and that when a brother in Benue is dragged down a bush path, it is a member of your own family. The church in America should speak for the persecuted plainly, and its elected leaders should keep pressing Nigeria's government to protect its Christian citizens. The right to worship and to travel home from church without being seized is not a luxury. It is the first duty of any government that bears the sword.
What the captive knows
There is something a man learns in a place like that which comfortable men seldom learn. He learns that every earthly door can be locked from the outside, and that only one Door cannot. Paul wrote his letters from chains. Peter slept between soldiers the night before his trial. The gospel has never depended on the freedom of its servants, and it never will.
"Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all." (Psalm 34:19)
Understand that verse rightly. It does not say the righteous will have no afflictions. It says many. It says the Lord is present in them and is greater than them, and that in His time and His way He brings His own through. Sometimes that deliverance comes on a Sunday evening with police at the gate and a hospital bed waiting. Sometimes it comes on the far side of death, when the Lord wipes away every tear. In either case the promise holds.
And what of the men who took him? They too are sinners for whom Christ died. The gospel that comforts the captive also summons the captor. Justice must be done, and the law should deal firmly with those who sell human beings for ransom. But the cross is wide enough for the worst of men, and the Lord who freed His servant can also break the hard heart of a kidnapper.
My friend, you may never travel a road like the one in Ohimini. But you are traveling one. Every soul is on a road that ends before a holy God. The Lord Jesus came to open the prison door that no policeman can open, the one of sin and death, and He did it by laying down His own life and rising again on the third day. Whoever calls on His name is set free, and free indeed.