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Check Out This Heartfelt Story Nigerian Poet Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Wrote About Her Father’s Kidnapping

Nigerian poet Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie famously known as the voice on Beyonce’s hit song “flawless” wrote an article in The New York Times about a terrifying experience she recently had when her father got kidnapped back in Nigeria.

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Chimamanda says she wouldn’t understand why someone would kidnap a 83 year old man who would not kill an ant? “He got his doctoral degree at Berkeley in the 1960s, on a scholarship from the United States Agency for International Development; became Nigeria’s first professor of statistics; raised six children and many relatives; and taught at the University of Nigeria for 50 years. Now he makes fun of himself, at how slowly he climbs the stairs, how he forgets his cellphone. He talks often of his childhood, endearing and rambling stories, his words tender with wisdom”, says Cimamanda of his father.

She speaks about how kidnapping is common in the state where her family lives in Nigeria but was surprised to hear the news of her father’s kidnapping because the number of abductions had decreased in recent years.

She talks about her her family were worried, how her mother would speak with the kidnappers in the most sincere way in fear of what they might do to her husband. ” How do you bargain for the life of your husband? How do you speak of your life partner in the deadened tone of a business transaction?”she said.

His father got released upon obeying the kidnappers command but the novelist says the experience still haunts her. The kidnappers knew who she was and they wanted money from her. “I constantly straddled panic; I was sleepless, unfocused, jumpy, fearful that something else had gone wrong. And there was my own sad guilt: He was targeted because of me”, she recalls.

Although the nightmare is over, Chimamanda says her greatest sadness is that her father will never forget.

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