By Mike Odeh James
(Kaduna) He sits in a dim, cramped hut that smells of damp earth and old thatch. Light barely reaches him. His right leg, exposed from knee to sole, tells the story before he speaks — reddish, mottled with dark patches, leaking a thin discharge. It is not healing. It is deteriorating.
Namiji Mairiga, 42, studies it the way a man looks at something he no longer fully recognizes as his own. Pain is etched into the set of his jaw, in the stillness of someone who has learned not to move unless necessary.
“I am in pain, this wound is eating deeply into my flesh and for the past two years, it has been the same story of no help,” Mairiga tells TruthNigeria.
A devout Christian and carpenter with the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), he once lived by the strength of his limbs — measuring, lifting, standing for hours at a time. That life has been stripped away.
Thousands of miles away in Washington, powerful men are now speaking about men like Mairiga.
America Has Spoken, but Middle Belt still Burning.
U.S. President Donald Trump recently declared that the United States “cannot stand by while such atrocities are happening in Nigeria.” The United States Department of State has redesignated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, a label reserved for governments implicated in severe violations of religious freedom.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also stated in a public post that the Pentagon is working “aggressively with Nigeria to end the persecution of Christians by jihadist terrorists.”
The statements have reached Kajuru County in Kaduna State. What has not reached is relief.
Paid the Ransom, Became the Ransom.
On July 21, 2024, Mairiga left home carrying ransom money. His mother-in-law had been abducted by Fulani Ethnic Militia (FEM), and the family had gathered what was demanded. He was to deliver the payment and bring her home.
He never returned.
“I traveled to Rijana Forest with the ransom that the Fulani Ethnic Militia had demanded, but what happened was so terrible,” he told TruthNigeria. “They seized the money and other valuables and also seized me but released my mother-in-law.”
Inside the forest camp, survival was measured in beatings and hunger. Mairiga told TruthNigeria he was flogged daily “like an animal.” Captives were fed only three times a week. He watched three fellow detainees killed. At different points, he was told he would be executed — then, without explanation, spared.
“I believed that I was spared because I prayed and asked God for protection,” the carpenter told TruthNigeria.
“A few days into my captivity, some victims broke the chains on their legs and escaped. The Fulani terrorists were so angry they used the butts of their guns to smash our legs. Despite dripping with blood, they fastened chains on our legs — and that is how I developed this gash. Since then, I cannot walk. If I must use the toilet, it must be with the aid of my wife or 90-year-old mother,” he tells TruthNigeria.
For Mairiga’s family, survival depended on something far more immediate. They assembled a second ransom: three motorcycles valued at ₦1.2 million each, along with ₦1 million in cash. There were no negotiations backed by diplomacy, no intelligence channels — only desperation.
On September 4, 2024, after 45 days in captivity, he was released. He returned home alive — but broken, unable to walk, work, or till his farm.
Help from the Field
Even as the U.S. government wheels slowly turned, one American had already reached him. Equipping the Persecuted (ETP), led by missionary and filmmaker Judd Saul, deployed a team to locate Mairiga in Kajuru. They found him in the same dim hut — unable to walk, his leg deteriorating, his mobility almost gone.
Saul’s ordered the team to get him urgent medical care. The process proved difficult. According to an ETP staff member, multiple orthopedic specialists declined to handle the case, citing the severity of the wounds and possible bone deterioration.
Saul was undeterred. “Mairiga must walk again — get him to the best hospitals,” he said. “He is God’s creature, and we must help him back to his feet.”
That insistence has begun to change the trajectory. Mairiga is now receiving treatment at Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital in Zaria, where doctors are assessing reconstructive options, including possible plastic surgery to repair the damaged tissue.
Fragile Turn Toward Hope
For his wife, Rose Mairiga, the shift is profound. “My husband is in good spirits,” she told TruthNigeria. “We know that God used ETP to help us. Apart from paying for treatment and transportation, ETP also gave us a cash donation and a bag of rice to sustain us.”
The man who once shaped wood with steady hands can no longer stand unaided. Basic movements — walking, bathing — have become dependent acts. What began as an effort to rescue a relative cost him his livelihood, his strength, and nearly his life.
He paid a ransom — and became one.
Yet something changed the day help arrived at his door. While policy discussions continue in Washington, intervention on the ground has already altered his chances of survival.
Mike Odeh James is a conflict reporter with TruthNigeria.
