What activities do you lose yourself in?

In Nigeria…motorcycle taxi drivers are called OKAS and in IIDON which is one of Nigeria’s biggest cities home to three and a half million people there are a lot of okas however despite their massive numbers these iidon okas are actually a fairly tight-knit Community made up primarily of young men and so in early 2014 when two of these okas went missing the community immediately found out about it and was really concerned and when the police did not appear to be doing much to actually go out and find these two guys the community of okatas decided to launch a search of their own basically as they went about their day driving around the city dropping fairs off all of these okas would be going down side streets and looking in back alleys and checking all over the city for their missing members but despite their best efforts they never could find them then on March 22nd of that year a third iidon okata vanished he was a young man named L re sidiku and unlike the other two riders who went missing while they were at home lre went missing while he was working. lre was part of a group of okads within the city who all kind of met up on the same city street and that’s where they stayed throughout the course of their day trying to wave down fairs as they came up and so everyone in that Meetup Point all knew each other and so they all knew LR and on the day he went missing they recall seeing him driving away from this Meetup point with two passengers on the back of his bike now typically the rides these okas would offer to their passengers were very short they’re only driving them just around the city and so it was very quickly noticed that lre had left and after several hours had still not come back yet when it was noticed by the other Okas they began talking about it and someone said you know give him a call make sure he’s okay and so they called his cell phone and Lon re did not pick up which was highly unusual not just for LR but amongst the other okas they always have their phones on because they’re looking for new customers and customers could be calling them and so their cell phone is a vital part of their work and so his phone is off they don’t really know what to make of that and then out of nowhere lre actually calls this group of riders however he was calling them on his second cell phone LR would keep a workphone and a personal phone so he was calling them on his personal phone and so when this other okata answered the phone and heard lr’s voice he put the phone on speaker so the others who were concerned could hear what was going on and what they heard was LR totally hysterical screaming into the phone that he needed help he said that he and eight other people he was with who he didn’t even know had been kidnapped and their kidnappers had brought them to this underground prison cell they couldn’t see anything but they could hear people walking above them LR also explained that when they had been kidnapped the captors had taken all of their belongings but they hadn’t recognized that LR had this secondary cell phone which is why he was calling from it and so in between lr’s frantic descriptions of what was going on and what had happened to him these okas that received this call they can hear in the background these other eight people that are with LR in this underground cell screaming out as loud as they can probably to get the attention of someone anyone who was above ground who might be able to come down and save them and so these okata Riders who are getting this call from lre they’re horrified and they’re trying to calm LR down so he can explain where he is so they can go find him and finally LR he does compose himself and he gives them really specific directions to this foot path that led into the sooka forest where he said he had been taken the sooka forest was a very dense stretch of wilderness right on the outskirts of iidon LR would tell them that he had no idea where specifically in the SOA Forest he was however he said if you just keep walking on that path eventually you’ll hear us calling out from underground and you can come and save us and so as the Riders turned on their bikes and they got ready to head out and go rescue their friend they told LR to stay on the line let us keep talking to you until we find you….

But as they’re telling him that his phone abruptly cuts out and then when they tried calling him back his phone was off about 40 okas from lre’s Meetup spot took off together and sped down city streets until they hit this major highway that would take them out of the city and then once they were out of the city they went down this other road that brought them right towards the sooka forest and then as this road put them right up against the tree line on their left side of the SOA Forest they all began looking for the two burned out cars that LR had said marked the beginning of this foot path they were looking for and so sure enough they find these burned out cars they Park all their bikes off on the shoulder of the road and they quickly realized that this really is a foot path only there’s no way they can get their motorcycles onto the path not only because the burned out cars are blocking their way but because the path itself is so overgrown with vegetation I mean they can barely see the path let alone drive something through it and so the men leave their bikes by the side of the road and then unarmed they walk past the burned out cars onto this path and then because it was so narrow they had to walk more or less in a single file line into the SOA forest and so as these men are basically marching into the woods they’re not making any sound because again they’re trying to listen for the sound of their friend and the other people that have been taken captive somewhere underground and so they’re silently marching through this Forest when all of a sudden the guy at the front of the line thinks he hears something way up ahead and so he holds his hand up to stop the line and they all stop and they’re trying to listen and then all of a sudden about 50 ft ahead of them through the trees this man they didn’t recognize suddenly jumped out from behind a tree he yelled something at them and then he raised his gun and began firing in their Direction the 40 okas immediately turn around and just Sprint back down the path right back out to the road they hop on their bikes and they peel back out towards the city when they finally get back to the Meetup spot they had all originated from they realized they can’t just leave lray and the other people he was with out to dry they have to go back and rescue them they considered calling the police but given the lackluster response to the other two missing okas they realized they probably would have a higher chance of saving their friend and the other if they just went themselves and so the 40 OKAs rounded up another 60 from other neighboring Meetup spots and this huge posy of over a hundred men all hopped on their bikes and headed back towards that foot path that led into the forest when they got there they put their bikes on the side of the road and this time when they started walking down that path they had guns knives bats all sorts of weapons and they were not trying to be quiet they were actually yelling like these loud war cries to let the gunmen and any other gunmen in the woods know that there was a horde of angry people that were coming into the woods for a fight and so as they’re marching down this trail kind of expecting to get shot at at any point, it doesn’t happen instead after quite a while they walk out of the thick forest into this huge opening and right in the middle of this huge clearing is this fairly small River but it’s big enough that it would be very difficult to cross.

However, they can see there’s a bridge this kind of crumbling Old Stone Bridge that goes over this River and then on the otherside of the bridge on the other side of the river they can see there are two dilapidated buildings the one that is closer to the bridge is this small black Shack that has a window looking out towards them and from their perspective they’re maybe 100 feet away from the shack they can’t tell if anybody’s inside of this building and then the other building was much bigger than the shack it was this huge kind of broken down Warehouse that had big tall cement walls and then all around it was this huge chain link fence with barb wire wrapped around the tops and so this huge posi of okas they come storming out of the forest and they run over to that bridge which is the one way across and as they get on the bridge they’re kind of scanning the two buildings they’re not seeing anybody and then one of the men they look down underneath the bridge and they actually see lawn R’s motorcycle it’s lying on the banks of this River kind of tucked up underneath the bridge as if someone had stolen it and so everyone already knows lonr is somewhere over here we’re going to go find him and so the men they get over the bridge they go to that first building that black Shack and they open up the door it’s a plywood door and there’s no one inside but the shack is literally stuffed full of hundreds and hundreds of articles of clothing and shoes and so after kind of looking this over and not really sure what to make of it the posi moved on from the Black Shack and made their way up to the fence right in front of this huge warehouse and when they reached the fence they’re kind of expecting to be met with some sort of resistance I mean the last time they were out here they got shot at and so they begin yelling into the warehouse for anyone in there to show yourselves come out here but it was silent and so one of the okas that was part of the posi had brought along bolt cutters as a weapon to use as a club if he needed to but as it happened he began to use the bolt cutters for their actual purpose and he bent down and actually cut a huge hole in this fence so they could go in and explore this warehouse and so after a large percentage of this posy had gotten inside the fence line they began walking around this huge Warehouse to try to find find an entrance inside and so as they’re walking the windows that lead into this Warehouse they’re too high up so you can’t actually see what’s going on inside it’s silent there’s a pretty bad smell but they don’t really know what to make of this they walk around the structure and when they get to the very back they find an entrance all it is is this big rusted piece of tin metal like sheet metal that’s propped up against a gap in the walls of the warehouse and so one of the okas grabs this piece of metal and he pushes it out of the way and then as soon as he did that a few other okas quickly stepped through the threshold into the warehouse preparing themselves to have to fight potentially if there are gunmen or anybody else inside that might want to do them harm but as soon as they see what is inside of this Warehouse they immediately lower their weapons and just stare in abject horror according to the locals who lived actually in the forest relatively near where this warehouse was they said there was actually another way to get to this particular area to get to the warehouse there was another path that was very rough but it was big enough for one vehicle that came in from the other direction now the locals said they didn’t use this path at all they didn’t even know where it originated from but they said for the last 10 years or more they have seen one vehicle use this road all the time to get to the warehouse and it was this black Jeep with black tinted out windows and they said it would typically show up most nights of the week around 8:00 p.m. and they said it would just go down the road it would make its way over to the warehouse area and then around 9:30 p.m. they would hear or see the black Jeep leaving now none of the locals knew who was driving this Jeep although they knew it was a man that was really all they knew and they had no idea what this man did when he got over near the warehouse however for the last 10 years every time this guy was over near the warehouse from 8 to 9:30 at night they would typically hear screams coming from that part of the woods coming from the warehouse and and when the locals brought their concerns to police the police just kind of blew it off and didn’t do anything about it and actually told the people n don’t worry about it and so over the years the locals had kind of just accepted that this man in his black Jeep and the screams coming from this Warehouse were just a part of life and so no one even reported it anymore had the police followed up on the locals concerns about this Jeep and the screams they would have discovered that that warehouse was actually a storage facility for a very in demand and very illegal product and that man who drove that black Jeep he would take this illegal product and he would bring it back with him in batches and he would sell it on the black market when this posy of 100 plus okas pulled that metal door aside and they stepped into the warehouse they were not met with any resistance anyone that had been there any other gunmen or guards or anything like that they had fled when they heard the sound of this massive posi whooping and yelling on their way in and so as these okas are standing inside of the structure surveying what’s in front of them.

The first thing they noticed is right in the middle of the structure on the ground is this cement slab it’s about 4T by 4T and one corner of this slab was elevated slightly by some rocks that have been placed under it kind of propping it up pitching it on an angle and then just off of the side of the lowest point of the slab was this wooden bow that had dark stains inside of it that was positioned in such a way that if you put water on the slab the water would drain off of that corner directly into this bowl basically it was there to catch any runoff from whatever was happening on this slab around this cement slab all over the dirt floor were bones some with meat on them and then beyond the bones and beyond the slab all around the perimeter of the inside of this building were extremely malnourished catatonic people chained up to the walls these people were the highly in demand highly illegal product more specifically their body parts were the product in Nigeria a stunning number of people believe that certain magic potions and charms will grant you wealth and success and in some cases infinite life but the catch is the herbalists who will perform the magical rituals and give these potions and charms to people that pay for them they often require human body parts for them to work and so human body part factories like this Warehouse in SOA Forest were established in order to meet the high demand of people that needed these parts and so the way it’s believed it worked at the sooka forest Warehouse was the man in the black Jeep he would get orders from people that wanted specific body parts for their magical potions and charms and whatever else they needed and he would make a list of those parts and then at 8:00 p.m. he would show up at the Ware W house and he would communicate with the people that worked at that warehouse and they would determine out of all the captives they had who had the parts they needed and then after figuring out which captives were going to be used that night they would go into the main section of the warehouse and one by one they would unchain these people they would drag them to the center of the room and in full view of all the other captives they would put them on the slab known as the slaughtering slab and they would hack off the required body parts and we bag them up put them in coolers and then the man with the black Jeep he would take those parts and he would leave and then the person who’s just been butchered if they were still alive and might have a chance of surviving they’d just be brought back to the wall and chained up again if they did not have a good chance of survival then they’d be brought to the very back of the warehouse in the back rooms where they would be discarded now the means of execution varied but in the back rooms of this Warehouse they found a makeshift Guillotine which cuts off people’s heads and they also found a large crocodile that was chained up and so it’s likely that those were at least two of the methods used to discard of the people they could no longer Harvest organs from.

After the okatas kind of broke out of their initial shock of what they were seeing inside of this Warehouse they went around and began freeing people that were still chained up to the walls and in total there were 23 people that were still barely alive still inside of this Warehouse but none of them were LR sidiku and then after checking all of the dead bodies and body parts that were inside of the warehouse and then also right outside where there were a number of shallow Mass Graves they couldn’t find LR amongst them either and so this huge posi began looking all over the property for an entrance to this underground prison that LR had described being in but they couldn’t find it and So eventually this posi made their way back over to these survivors who were being tended to by locals that had come over and they asked the survivors you know are you aware of any underground prison cells somewhere around here where other people were being held but the survivors either didn’t know or just were unable to speak anymore and so later that day when the police did come out because word got out about this huge find out in this Forest. the posi went to the police and begged them to please begin digging up this entire property we need to find the entrance to this underground prison cell Lon Ray and eight others and who knows how many others Beyond them are trapped underground in these cells and we got to get to them but the police just kind of refused and immediately just demolished the warehouse and then after kind of cordoning off that area for a couple of days the police basically just left and stopped caring about it all together and so the okas once again came together as a community and would spend the next several weeks going back out to this forest and just manually began digging up all over this entire property in hopes of finding their friend and the rest of these people that were trapped underground but they never did and so we don’t know what happened to lonr and the other people who were trapped in that underground cell we don’t know what happened to the other two okas and the riders who went missing right before LR did… 

Although it’s generally assumed they most likely were kidnapped as well and probably met a similar fate we also have no idea how many people were butchered inside of the SOA Forest Warehouse however given the massive amount of clothing and shoes inside of that black Shack it’s believed the total number of victims is easily in the hundreds no one has ever been officially held accountable for the atrocities that took place in the sooka forest. However a couple of days after the warehouse was discovered by the okas…the posi was back digging looking for LR when they discovered there was this man who was there who was kind of walking around acting suspicious and so the posi confronted him and it would turn out this guy had several human tongues in his pockets along with dozens and dozens of cell phone SIM cards and so assuming he was part of whatever happened there the okata posi proceeded to kill the man on site later on a woman who was a Survivor from the warehouse would tell reporters how she got kidnapped she said she lived in iidon she was well educated. She had a good family she was just sitting outside of her house when all of the sudden this van pulled up in front of her and these very official looking men were inside of this van and they got out and they told her you know you’re under arrest you got to come with us to the police station and the woman was so confused but the men were very professional and seemed very convincing and so she got inside the van they shut the door and they drove off and very quickly once she was inside of the van and couldn’t go anywhere she realized they were not police she had been kidnapped and within the hour she along with several other people who had probably been kidnapped in the same way were stripping their clothes off right outside of Black Shack on the other side of the river and they were told to put their clothes and belongings inside of the shack while they were being held at gunpoint and then once they were naked they were promptly marched into that warehouse where virtually everyone around her would be butchered and killed so that’s going to do it guys.