Mr Hassan, who spoke in the Hausa language, urged the federal government to discuss with the bandits.
The released Managing Director of the Nigerian Bank of Agriculture, Alwan Hassan, has said he was released by bandits due to his age.
In a one-minute twenty-one seconds video clip obtained by Premium Times, Mr Hassan was seen standing in front of a damaged Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) Machine Vehicle, sandwiched by four bandits in military camouflage with Assault rifles.
Mr Hassan was abducted nine days ago when bandits planted explosives on the rail track and immobilised a Kaduna bound train.
Eight passengers were said to have been killed and several others were abducted by the bandits.
PREMIUM TIMES reported that the Managing Director was released Wednesday afternoon by the gunmen.
Mr Hassan, who spoke in the Hausa language, urged the federal government to discuss with the bandits.
“Peace be upon you all. I want you to know that the bandits have sympathized with me considering my age but I also want you to know that I’ve left a lot of people behind (bandits’ camp) and they need urgent help for them to leave this place. I hope that government should reach out to the leaders of these people so that they can discuss and have the captives released in time,” he said.
Before Mr Hassan spoke, one of the bandits said the managing director was released because of his age and for Ramadan fasting.
Ramadan is the Holy month period that Muslims observe fast for 29 or 30 days.
“We are the people who abducted some people on a train some days back and you can see them. This one here (pointing at Mr Hassan) has been begging us to release him and considering his age and also because of the Ramadan fast, we decided to release him to his relatives.
“But this government should know what it’s doing. It’s nothing. We just decided to let him go. We’ll now let him speak if he has anything to add,” he said.
Another bandit said the government knows what they need from them.
“You (government) should know that this is just the beginning of what we’re going to do….. Killing them is not a big deal to us. You know what we want and it’s not money. If it’s money, we’ll not be doing this. So, it’s left to you to hasten and do what we need from you if not, we’ll do what we want to do to them. This is our message,” he said.
PREMIUM TIMES
